Comments Erik Hoffner has made

Very cool feature. He's great. I picked up a copy of Logsdon's 'small scale grain raising' in a used bookshop while apprenticed to a biodynamic farm in 1996. Been around a while, more relevant than ever.

Erik, Orion Grassroots Network

Just heard from an activist contact in WV who wrote of the event: "it is actually a rally for Friends of America - entire churches are being urged to go because it also is supposed to be an anti Obama rally (one church member said)
We've also heard its an anti health care reform rally.

Anything to get people out to pretend that America needs more MTR as fast as possible."

Erik, Orion Grassroots Network

Yes, he's great. The audio interview with him from this weekend is excellent, highly recommended:

http://www.cchange.net/2009/08/12/growing-food-growing-community/

Erik, Orion Grassroots Network

Wow, what a bunch of hotties on that Grist Girls team.

But why leave out us wise folks with beards AND 'staches, eh?

Erik, Orion Grassroots Network

Great roundup, Bill! Your review of Alexis Rockman's post-apocalyptic-climate paintings in 2006 in Orion magazine also comes to mind:

http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/165/

And then there's http://greenmuseum.org - a super place to find inspiring art on all sorts of natural topics.

(sorry the links don't work: the new grist.org does not work or load (including toolbars) properly on dialup still)

- Erik, Orion Grassroots Network

Thanks for this reporting. We've got to keep tabs on this practice: the costs associated with it I'm afraid will exceed the amount of gas that's recoverable. The practice is spreading into upstate NY and it's being questioned closely there, too. Erik, Orion Grassroots Network

Yes, when something is cheap, chances are, it isn't.

It's been 6 years since Pollan first published (to my knowledge) the simple idea that 'local is the new organic,' and proud to say, it was in Orion magazine. July 2003 issue.

That idea has gone a long way since then.

Erik, Orion Grassroots Network

Tyler, Nantucket Sound is no wilderness. If you've been on it before, you'll know it's mucked up with so much boat/ferry/trawler traffic that at times it looks like a beltway, with a solid icing of diesel smog. Ain't no wilderness. It's industrial.

I'm sure old Ed would have preferred to see the unobstructed horizon in the morning from his shanty on the Marthas Vineyard beach, but not at the expense of a planet warmed beyond human capacity to survive. As much as he was into the geologic record and letting wild things be, he also loved classical music, booze, and a million other cultural artifacts that he never gave up.

That's what this topic is about: saving humanity, not the Earth. If you don't mind if humanity ceases to be, that's your business. Not that Cape Wind will save us, but the resistance to all thing like it may doom us. - Erik

Oh boy, Zevia really got panned...'weird, bad, toothpaste'...Notiiced the food coop has the Blue Sky brand on super duper sale this week. Shall give it a shot.

Erik

Fine list, but what we need to do is save humanity, if that's actually what is meant by 'save the world.'

Holy mackerel, 164 to 1. Yikes. But agro-ecological approaches will prove out in the long run over GMOs and chemicals, so good luck to WW, truth is on your side.

Erik, Orion Grassroots Network

Enjoyable, watching them attack each other. Positively easy on the eyes.

But their party is truly deaf if they think rhetoric and soundbites are enough to confuse people into ambivalence on the issue of climate change. They also don't consider the fresh age of the hordes of climate activists in the country.

Erik, Orion Grassroots Network

Thanks to everyone who was arrested. It's going to be a long summer for Massey and their friends. The Obama Admin will certainly be watching. Erik, Orion Grassroots Network

Well what do you know, the state is bowing to grassroots pressure and today announced that it's going to revisit the issue:

"The state's environmental affairs secretary is calling for an in-depth study of weightier issues -- like global warming and forestry practices -- that lie behind concerns about wood-burning power plants like a 47-megawatt generator proposed for Greenfield.

Citing public concerns raised about the environmental impact of those projects on air quality, greenhouse gas emissions, and forests, Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Ian Bowles is calling for public comments on what the scope should be for such a sweeping review.

The state plans to use the ''white paper'' to develop a ''sustainability requirement'' for electricity generated from woody crops and forest products under the its Renewable Portfolio Standard."

http://www.recorder.com/story.cfm?id_no=20080526351

Erik, Orion Grassroots Network

Interesting. That site only talks about increasing heat and doesn't explain the weather anomalies the Northeast is experiencing right now, in terms of another cool wet spring (3rd in a row: sad tomato plants abound) - and it's still going - leaving everyone craving summer weather. Soggy. Here at the Orion magazine office we're starting to call it the Pacific Northeast.

So maybe that's the deal, Sarah: we got your weather now, you got ours. Climate change is just that: change everywhere of all kinds, even cooler weather sometimes. - Erik, Orion Grassroots Network

Truly a pity. But we knew Obama was a coal guy for a long time before inauguration day. Citizens, the grassroots, will have to continue leading on this topic. - Erik, Orion Grassroots Network

Good to see this sort of story in GQ.

Erik, Orion Grassroots Network

Cacaoatl - dunno, but I can tell you that there's no mass market for pinkish grey copy paper, at least not yet. Would be hard on the eyes.

Certainly in a post petro collapse world where people make their own paper in a solar powered blender, whatever color it was would just have to do...

Todd, thanks for the update on GM wheat: last I heard in the article in Orion magazine you were in, the growers in ND had pretty well told Monsanto to forget it already with the GM wheat:

http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/171/

Seems to me that growers would do well, still, to consider the irrevocable loss of market share once GM wheat were introduced, as Byron said well. Those 'furriners' don't want GMOs. Does the NAWG leadership think that their members can sell all the wheat grown in the US here in the US? And if they can't, is the NAWG leadership ready to buy it all?

Thanks, Meredith, that's been annoying me too, including the little top of the hour underwriting announcements about how green Monsanto's biotech crops are. Even tho I hardly listen to NPR, I invariably hear these spots lately when I tune in.

Shaun, your beliefs can't be borne out in fact. It's understandable that as a retailer of such products you want to believe it's a better product. But Roundup Ready (RR) crops are leading to increased application and decreased efficacy of Roundup (glyphosate) due to the rapid rise of superweeds that have already adapted or appropriated the RR gene, which can still be killed by the glyphosate but at much higher application concentrations. Those higher concentrations are an environmental ill and will lead to more superweeds, too.

See the 'rise of the superweeds' section here:

http://sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Monsanto_and_the_Roundup_Ready_Controversy

That loss of glyphosate would be a serious blow to conventional farming worldwide. But besides the higher app rates of the stuff, its waning efficacy encourages growers to use additional herbicides on their RR crops, negating any benefit, from the link above:

"As their quandry escalates farmers in the RR system are now having to rely on other, more toxic herbicides in an attempt to control the weeds, "highly toxic herbicides, some of them banned in other countries, which glyphosate was supposed to replace, have had to be brought back in use in addition to glyphosate. These include 2,4D, 2,4DB, Atrazine, Paraquat, Metsulphuron Methyl, Imazethapyr."

Erik, Orion Grassroots Network

REALLY solid letter that should catch Lisa Jackson's attention especially given the justice angle, which she gets. Thanks, Jeff.

Erik, Orion Grassroots Network

PHEP: thanks, I took your advice to check my assertions and found:

"...by 2005, MRSA was killing more than 18,000 Americans a year, more than AIDS."

"One of the first clues that pigs could infect people with MRSA came in the Netherlands in 2004, when a young woman tested positive for a new strain of MRSA, called ST398. The family lived on a farm, so public health authorities swept in — and found that three family members, three co-workers and 8 of 10 pigs tested all carried MRSA."

"Now this same strain of MRSA has also been found in the United States. A new study by Tara Smith, a University of Iowa epidemiologist, found that 45 percent of pig farmers she sampled carried MRSA, as did 49 percent of the hogs tested."

These quotes are from a piece in a recent edition of the New York Times. No doubt you have a 'professional' take on this.

Erik, Orion Grassroots Network

Thanks for this, Gloria.

I just heard about a new design for a small cookstove being developed for people all over the world who use wood/biomass to cook with, one that cuts down on the smoke and therefore indoor air pollution/health issues and planet warming soot, but which also produces small amounts of biochar to improve the owner's soils with.

Sounds like a real win-win there.

Erik, Orion Grassroots Network

Alex, sure, but internships generally don't pay all that well. It's more about experience, but of course everyone has to balance their financial needs when considering service opportunities. I did 5 semi-paid internships after college, and I still benefit from that time.

On the flip side, if you're with a grassroots group that wants to hire Americorps members and you've so far found the process a little overwhelming, the Orion Grassroots Network is hosting a conference call next Wed, 4/29, to dispel some of the confusion. More here. Email us for the call in info if you want to join us.

Erik, Orion Grassroots Network

The Rudd government refuses to take meaningful action on slowing the flow of coal, despite all the talk and bluster post-election, and the ruinous drought it's experiencing. It's disappointing. Peter Garrett, where are you, man? Stand up and do something...

Amen, Gloria. I am positive that common sense non-industrial applications of biochar will make a difference for people and planet. I look forward to learning more about what you're learning in piloting this technique out West. Erik, Orion Grassroots Network

Interesting. Most failed LNG proposals I'm aware of have failed b/c they were poor proposals, very near large urban centers or in the case of Eastport, Maine, in dangerous waters and sure to defile land sacred to the Passamaquoddy tribe.

But if, as Wellinghoff says, LNG curtailment leads to continued domestic gas exploration of sources like coalbed methane in the West, then this bodes ill for natural areas all along the Rockies.

But Sean, is LNG not part of the world's fungible petroleum supply? Why not ship the stuff to those countries willing to use it? I don't think we can say that if the US doesn't use more of it, then wells will just continue to be flared.

Mark, and atlantic mackerel is also great smoked... - Erik

Oh, nice, wish we had candy caps around here with any kind of regularity. Where I lived in coastal CA a decade ago I could pick boxes of 'em. The mushroom hunting isn't as exciting in the East as in CA, so I've taken to growing my own, mostly, shiitakes and oysters.Tho last summer I had (nearly) all the chantarelles I could eat, so that was a nice reminder of the CA days...

Erik

 

I agree on the 'recent comments' section of the old site. Prefer that to the 'quick go check my email to see if anyone has commented on the post I'm following' b/c it's all visible at once who's talking about what when you have a comments section right on the main page of the gristmill.

Reviving that in the space that seems to be reserved at this point for pointless polls would be my vote.

Erik

One thing I'll say is that it's a horror on dialup. Now I get to wait a couple minutes just to log in...

off

The governor is pretty new, hard to know exactly where he stands yet, I think. But you may infer some things about his judgment from this ill-conceived public support of Israel's incursion into Gaza:

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/1/13/pro_israel_supporte ...

It's one thing to support Israel, but to rally publicly in support of an illegal action that was killing of hundreds and hundreds of civilians?

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

blog

Brent, it's a lonely thing supporting biofuels in the Gristmill, it's true. Guys with the initials 'JMG' particularly have a burr under their saddles lately about it, including the following rant on making it from waste, which even the most ardent of opponents concede is a fine idea:

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2009/1/29/15305/7969

John was largely upset about the idea of it perpetuating CAFO economics, but it's emblematic of the treatment biofuels usually get. Sometimes for fine reasons, sometimes not.

But regarding this:

"Your biodiesel lies and distortions truly compromise the integrity of your blog, and i stongly urge your readers to beware of the misinformation."

Any perceived distortions are not the result of an editorial bent at Grist - most folks who write blog posts here, like myself, are 'guest contributors' and not Grist staff - check the left side bar to see who the staff actually are.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

well done

Well done all! Starting 09 off like this is crucial...

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

toxic

I worked on a couple organic farms after college. The first one used a lot of mined amendments but also chemicals like sabadilla which is almost as crazy as rotenone - we wore hazard suits to apply it. The stuff breaks down fast, and thankfully, that only was necessary a few times a season - mechanical control (by hand) usually worked well enough.

But it made me wonder about selling the stuff at the farmers market, whether these folks knew what was on some of this...few asked.

And this was a 6 or 7 acre certified organic (and diverse) market garden. Imagine what an enormous organic farm may need to use. So caution I think is warranted.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

UK

And from across the Pond, an effort in the UK to encourage beekeeping by farms and private individuals...

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/02/plan-bee-launched ...

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

but

Tom, I hear you, but Rourke has already won the best actor G Globe and BAFTA, right? Time for Penn to win one. It's only fair...

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

fun with numbers

Who really knows how many small time farmers are out there? Nobody, I'm sure.

The key thing for me though is the importance of these folks in the years ahead. Many new people are getting into ag, and if the number of graduates that these programs turn out every year is any indication, the number is on the rise:

Michael Fields Ag Inst (WI):

http://www.michaelfieldsaginst.org/

Farm Beginnings (MN):

http://www.landstewardshipproject.org/farmbeg.html

The Farm School (MA):

http://www.farmschool.org

Maybe they'll replace and surpass the small farmers retiring now. Just look at the burgeoning number of CSAs as one indicator.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

sure

Sure, wildlife corridors created by coordinating with a local land trust or accessing the know-how of regional biologists would be a fine way to ensure a place like this' green space amounts to something special.

But wild things also do tend to find their way in to spaces like this, with or without planning. Birds in flight, and the seeds and critters they carry on their feet and in their guts, being one of the most important and accessible vectors.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

good to know

Thanks for the note about that, Gotham. Good luck!

Canis, the 'exploitative' relationship you imply is a bit overdone (even vegetarians that eschew honey have to admit that they need lots of bees pollinating plant crops for them). This would be more true of the truck-farm hives, where the bees are moved in trailers to new orchards all the time, but hardly in a setting like this, where the presence of metro bees is largely constrained by lack of shelter, habitat and forage. If someone wants to bring in a sheltering hive near where flowers and urban gardens grow, what harm could the bees perceive in that?

All domesticated animals and plants have allowed themselves to be domesticated. There are lots which have not. Many kinds of mushrooms and medicinal plants refuse to grow outside of their natural settings, for eg.

I agree that certainly neighbors should be consulted when a new hive is proposed for siting. If the neighbor is allergic, common sense would dictate that this is not an appropriate site.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

a pity

A pity these guys keep reading the law this way, deferring to agencies so much.

No matter, this will just be fuel for the fire, b/c in the court of public opinion, coal operators CANNOT rebuild streams, and the watersheds are not equivalent to what they were pre-mining.

This loss will make the victories we see this year on MTR all the more sweet.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

good

That's good news that nukes and CCS got stripped out. Wondering though, I've heard some smart people say that CCS needs to be developed somewhere, even if it's not going to be used in the US, b/c China and India are going to be burning lotsa coal for lots more years after the US hopefully is not, and ought to be capturing that.

Anyone know if other countries or companies are working to develop it? Not that I think it's necessarily wise that they do, but just curious.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

nice

Now that's not very nice, DrX. Play nice.

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

academies

rosie, what details of these academies can you share? Sounds interesting. What kinds of skills/training are planned?

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

interesting!

Wonder what a constitutional scholar would have to say about it, but hey, if we can get going on confronting climate disruption by statute rather than treaty, Team Obama ought to get on it. I can stand listening to repugnicans in the senate no more than the next guy, and it's pointless to bring a climate treaty to these knuckledraggers who can only think about how to engineer a way back to a majority in Congress while the world burns...

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

Good one

That's a great way of putting it. Though a tax cut can give us wind turbines and solar stations,  infrastructure has got to be in there. Little things, like water treatment plants.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

zero waste

Mr. McGrath: speaking of bringing wide impact green ideas from Boulder to DC, why not tell the President about EcoCycle and their pioneering work on 'zero waste?'

http://www.ecocycle.org/zero/index.cfm

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

hmm

Same argument animal rights folks have made regarding leather, seems to me. Do you hate leather too, JMG?

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

Tsk tsk

JMG, don't be a curmudgeon now. I highly doubt that a mural project or an artful wrap on the city buses or what have you is going to take resources away from other initiatives to make cities livable in the sustainable sense.

So some cities have commissioned bad art. That was their mistake. And not everyone is interested in old architecture. I don't care at all about old buildings.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

I agree

There are appropriate uses of ORVs to access remote areas. Lots of hunters use them to bring gear and, they hope, an animal back out. They're certainly not driving around at top speed with rifles or bows cocked. They park and hike into the trees and draws and wait. Backcountry photogs like our friend Backcut, probably, use them to get to places hard to access. Don't think they're the kind to overuse a machine in such areas or drive them thru photogenic meadows...

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

amen

Yes, art is an essential facet, part of the glue that makes cities livable.  

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

bent grass

Here's a meaty eg of what's in this database, the first entry under the envi effects of GMOs section:

Manipulated Organism: Creeping bentgrass (Agrostis stolonifera L.).

Inserted Transgenes and Target Effect: CP4 EPSPS gene derived from the common soil bacterium Agrobacterium sp. (strain CP4) to convey resistance to the herbicide glyphosate. The gene was fused to the cauliflower mosaic virus (CaMV-35S) promoter so that the gene would be expressed in all parts of the plant. Creeping bentgrass is a widely used golf course grass. Monsanto and Scotts Company developed the herbicide-resistant variety with this market in mind.

Results of these Studies: The transgene escaped into the wild by seeds (which are very small and light - about 13,500 seeds weigh one gram) and by pollen.

Watrud et al. (2004) found that the herbicide-resistance transgene spread via pollen to an area up to 21 km (13 miles) beyond the control area perimeter and had pollinated wild creeping bentgrass as well as a close relative (redtop, Agrostis gigantean). 53% of the creeping bentgrass plants investigated had offspring that were herbicide-resistant; most of these plants were found in a 2.1 km (1.3 mi.) area outside and downwind of the control area.

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

did you run, Steve?

Folks in my region who are greens are running for office and often losing if not by much, but have won some and come close to some important offices a couple times recently.

Maybe in your neck of the woods the greens aren't doing much, that is, unless you decide to do something about it...

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

Yes,

A mighty old growth oak has fallen...he had a worldwide influence.

A great new book on his writings was just published last month: The Ecology of Wisdom:

http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/review/42 ...

"THERE'S NO BETTER place to begin talking about Arne Naess...than on a mountainside. A particular mountain, in fact, called Hallingskarvet, somewhere off the Oslo-Bergen train line, in the wild and desolate high plateaus of Norway. On the slopes of this mountain, Naess has built himself a cabin, Tvergastein, a place he's often returned to and used as a poetic and philosophic touchstone for his immense body of work..."

ErikOn Father of 'deep ecology' dies at 96 posted 10 months ago 2 Responses

well just get involved then

Well, delpadre, if you're disappointed and have ideas of things to add to it, why not contact the folks who've developed the Seattle Green Map? That's the point of these things, they're collaborative and ongoing.

Clicking on the info button on the map gets you this contact info for someone named Seth:

Email:
info@feetfirst.info
Website:
www.seattlegreenmap.net
Location:
Seattle - WA - United States - North America

Mapmaker:
Seth Schromen-Wawrin
Role:
Project member

Address:

Seattle Green Map
c/o Feet First
314 1st Avenue South
Seattle, WA 98104

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

nice

Nice riff on the litterbox, KW! But why not take the opportunity there at the end to mention that almost perfect, tailor made for PETA critter, the lowly sea pussy, urchin in the genus Meoma? Now that's a real world critter with a lot more weight than PETA's overworked and underthought campaign.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meoma_ventricosa

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

he/we did it

Tim has officially now raised the $45K and then some, and now it's a question of whether the BLM will accept the money. If yes, then the question of what to do with the land going forward, but Tim's written a pretty great letter about the situation:

http://www.bidder70.org/articles/view/136621/

Go grassroots,

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

CO2 and the military

Thanks, Bill, good to hear  about the new Sea Change name.

This just came to my attention regarding CO2 emissions and the military: interesting:

http://carboncontrolnews.com/index.php/ccn/show/fear_of_u ...

Fear Of U.S. Political Fallout Kills Talk Of Military CO2 Emissions, by Charles Davis

"While the details of a new climate change treaty are supposed to be hammered out over the next year, little attention is being paid to how--or even whether--such an agreement should account for the significant amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions associated with overseas military activities, including conflicts such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sources say the heightened focus on national security concerns in recent years, and a strong desire to get the United States to support a new climate agreement, are likely to suppress explicit discussion of military emissions in the ongoing talks to replace the expiring Kyoto Protocol...."

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

DN

Yes, this is a great eg of individual action, grassroots style. Amy Goodman interviewed him recently, and he gave a very good account of his actions:

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/12/22/posing_as_a_bidder ...

He's ready to go to jail if need be.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

kiteships

Still veering off topic here, but since you're curious, Bob, here's two companies matching kites to cargo ships:

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/9/12/113159/502

Wonder how their business models are faring at the moment with the dip in oil prices.

I agree with you about getting too far into the weeds with the wonky sci fi energy stuff in Gristmill, but this particular and simple technology seems to be proving out.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

nuclear: too cheap to meter?

Nah, too expensive to matter, so said the Economist, that bastion of radical left wing enviro rags.

ErikOn Old Man Winter declares war on renewable energy posted 10 months, 4 weeks ago 33 Responses

unsavory

I guess you still stand behind this, then:

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/12/28/12156/403

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

update

Here's an update received via email from one of the intrepid United Mountain Defense grassroots activists:

Report From Matt Landon at the spill site in TN:
Contact mattlandon2001@yahoo.com or phone 865 689 2778 H

Members of United Mountain Defense (web: http://www.unitedmountaindefense.org ) traveled Tuesday to Harriman, TN to learn more first hand about the impacts of the coal ash pond failure.  We traveled on Swan Pond Rd visiting local residents and passing out information about the chemicals that may be present in the drinking water.

Begining at 3pm Dec 23, 2008 TVA officials began to visit all of the houses just prior to our visit advising residents to boil their drinking water before consuming it for the next 5 days.

Unfortunately TVA did not inform anyone about the reasons for needing to boil the water and any chemicals that may be present in their water.  The city of Harriman was working 24 hours a day to install a new water pipe in order to provide these residents with cleaner water.  Their current water source was a large spring which may have been contaminated by the spill.

We also met a man who had been vomitting for the past 12 hours after drinking a couple of pots of coffee made from the tainted water.  We advised him to go to the hospital.

The media has been reporting that affected citizens were being housed in a local motel, but we met many citizens who had spent the last two nights without electricity or gas heat in 27 F weather.  A source shared information that TVA knew that the coal ash dam had been leaking for months now.  We visited approximately 40 households many of which had not recieved any information other than what they could figure out from the minute long television segments or an isolated phone call from the water or gas utility.

TVA police were limiting access to Swan Pond Rd as utility crews were actively working on the roadway.

United Mountain Defense is actively creating a plan of action to deal with this issue.  We plan to go back down to Harriman Wednesday.  The work is seeming to fall into a few catagories at this point.

We want to get more video, get more water samples from wells, springs, faucets, and sludge puddles.  We are going to get more familiar with the local area and resources.  We want to meet more locals, pass out info, and set up protests.  Any suggestions that you have would be greatly appreciated.  If you are able to test water samples for heavy metals or other specilized water testing please let us know.  We also have an updated list of demands below for TVA since they have been so naughty.  

Check out the TVA Protest Videos  http://dirtycoaltva.blogspot.com/

Visit our website at www.unitedmountaindefense.org

Feel free to send checks for copies, paper, gas and general support funds to
United Mountain Defense
P.O. Box 20363
Knoxville, TN 37920

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

clever

Clever of me to link to the same story that Jeff did - obviously didn't read his links too closely. But the point remains for me, this ash is a nightmare in many dimensions.

Nuke plants have shielding, but does the entire downstream area of the spill have that? The stuff is dilute, and we live on an already irradiated planet, but how many toxic insults are we willing to bear to boil water?  

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

incredible

Amazingly destructive this is. Horrifying. Unimaginable how much has been undone by this one event, that will need to be fixed by non-coal-company resources.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

and this is how others react to the cold

While some people bunker in when it gets cold and icy, Amazingdrx appears to embrace it by losing all of his clothes:

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2008/12/20 ...

Amazin, will you come over and shovel my driveway dressed like this?

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

good to hear it

Denise,

Good to know that progressives can work with Mr. Vilsack.

Forgot that you ran for that post in 2006! Man, if the founder of the Women Food and Agriculture Network had won, thereby bringing her sustainable ag grassroots savvy to that office, Iowa would have a pretty different ag-landscape now. You should run again.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

off grid

Jon, yes, it'd be great to get to a place where all buildings were somewhat less dependent on the grid. If I hadn't chickened out on my microhydro generator,

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/3/27/183942/200

I would have been in the pink these last 7 days. Or at least I would have had lights and water, if not a cold fridge.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

NE

Good to hear of this kind of thing in the Northeast. And any event involving Fred Kirschenman and Eliot Coleman I would trust to be pretty great.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

yes

Local and community ownership is key. The utilities are not, of course, very interested. In the Northeast we're building a cooperative (Coop Power) that will build and own renewable energy projects. It's totally grassroots, and has not enjoyed whole heckuva lot of support from the powers that be to date, with some notable exceptions. The coop is also buying domestic solar hot water panels in bulk for its members and helping them install. This way we can cooperatively own the bigger pieces plus the small ones on our roofs.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

heeds

You've got 'heeds' where 'needs' is what I think you intended in the last sentence, biodiversivist.

So, by combining the title of your post with the bit about Congressman Inslee watching his language because an "obscure blogger might be in the audience trying to take notes in the dark," are you taking credit for the world's awareness that growing crops for fuel is a troubled idea? I believe a former professor of mine has you beat by about 20 years, but rest assured that there won't be a change in the 'non-food based' language attached to this film when it putt putts out of Seattle.

Erik

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agreed

I know that all the lobbyists are already lining up with all of their pet projects that they want Obama & co to take up, but the recent 391 page document from the biggest of the big green groups, for eg, strikes me as too soon to ask 'our guy' for action on our green 'pets.'  

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

Mass

We've had a good crop of acorns here this year in Mass. But oaks are cyclical. They mast heavily one year, and not at all the next, and often over a broad range, in order, biologists say, to be elusive over time to squirrels and other nut eaters. Starving them all, and over a broad expanse, keeps them from eating all the nuts every time the oaks make them.

Not sure climate has much to do with it, unless it's drought related, which would make sense.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

western

W Virginia is like the wild west when it comes to law and the coal industry. Gov Manchin is one of the guys wearing a black stetson.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

wow

Those numbers on infant mortality near CAFOs are sobering. Environmental health is an important facet of this issue not often surfaced.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

Anna:

"The silly headlines for the Gristmill posts are really getting on my nerves"

What took you so long?

About this car, sweet. With a tankful of waste vegetable oil biodiesel, even McCain could ride to victory...

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

Clean Seas

"I'll be very disappointed if he really believes that ranching is a viable answer in any way."

Unfortunately, Ellis seems to take a little too much heart from the Clean Seas announcement, also evident later in this interview he did on Food Chain radio recently, "Show #601: BLUEFIN: COCAINE OF THE SEAS"

http://www.foodchainradio.com/shows/601BAbluefin.mp3

Erik

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cap

Amen, vakibs!

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

small greens, too

Small green groups are stoked, too. As a sector, there's a lot to be hopeful about, and build on.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

seeing is believing

Coal Ass. boss Raney's statement "...to dismiss mountaintop removal mining without even seeing it is shortsighted..." is interesting.

Actually, when most folks SEE this, it changes their whole outlook on coal, mining, consumption, and everything feeding the monster that is MTR. Seeing its destruction makes activists of people.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

more

And how about that it's distracting us from ending the disaster that is the occupation of Iraq? Wonder if there are any headlines out there about this. It's now clearer than ever that we should keep our last few billion dollars in the US instead of using it to further infuriate Iraqis, the grand majority of which want the occupation to end.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

same tree

JMG: this tree I'm standing with is the same one that was in Alan's book. Janusz brought me to it - very cool. The tree right behind me I believe is an ash.

Backcut: that's good news about the Congaree Swamp. Would like to see that.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

Wisci

To me, the new nature writing is not the "navel gazing I'm out in nature finding myself' of the past, but of finding and exploring the ways that we connect with and interact with the natural world as it is. It's a more hands-on exploration of what the natural world means to us as individuals, communities, and as a society. It's a more sophistocated cousin of the nature writing of the recent past, is all.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

the original solar energy

I'd like to see some emphasis from guvvy on supporting the expansion of local/urban/metro farming and gardening. Such small farm jobs are reeeally green, have known economic and social and health benefits, and are great for reducing energy use, unless it's growing tomatoes in greenhouses in VT in January. But even in winter, city based farms can produce massive amounts of greens - there's a CSA in the Twin Cities area that only offers a winter share for this reason.

Otherwise, I'd like to see DOE and USDA streamline their guidelines for clean energy startup seed money and loan guarantees. There are many clean energy projects just waiting to be launched, but red tape scares some off of partnering with the Feds.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

water

Yes, FL is feeling the heat.

FL's cities' water managers recently began a year long planning process for the eventuality of many of their cities being under water

http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2008/may/14/water-managers-dis ...

Ironically, or perhaps deliberately, the meeting was in Sebring, midway up the state, and the place that used to be the southern tip of FL when sea level was last at its highest.

Entities south of Sebring:

Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Lake Okeechobee, The Keys, Sanibel Island, The Everglades, the Florida Panther, x number of people....

Erik

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critters

Canis, yes, I've heard that some animal charities operate differently from Heifer Project, which itself introduces animals appropriately, from in-country sources, unless they're just not available or developed there yet. The largest propagation source of animals, really, is the 'passing the gift' mechanism where the offspring of a single animal is passed on to a neighbor, and so on and so on.

That's a whole lot different from the 'put a postage stamp on a goat and ship it off to some place' sort of picture the article you reference paints.

Heifer has staff in every country that works with/visits its recipient farmers, advising them as necessary on good animal husbandry, gardening, sustainable agriculture. Again, that may be another area where it differs from the others.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

those plants

Sounds like we need to develop an economically viable, alternative use for all the coal plants.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

thanks

Thanks for the thoughtful comments. atreyger, you've got a wealth of knowledge, and I appreciate its depth on the topic.

mihan, I agree about the worms. Or knotweed, asian longhorned beetles. Chestnut blight! There are some newcomers or changes that I can't abide the thought of.

But Bart, I agree very much, and found the article's subject's final quote to be very useful:

"It's not that this is all good or all bad, and I'm not sure science should be the arbiter," Dr. Brown said. "Placing values on these things is the job of society as a whole."

I couldn't agree more. This needs to be a wider discussion.  

Erik

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mushrooms

While not exactly in the 'critter' category, the most outstanding natural phenomenon in my back 40 this year has been wild mushrooms. We had a cool wet monsoon July again in Mass (thanks, climate change) but its one bonus was a plethora of edible and other mushrooms. I picked the most chanterelles this year since I left California a decade ago. These things are so delicious that I just have to look for them.

Of course the domesticated shiitakes that I have growing on oak logs have been doing quite fine, as well, thanks to that weather regime.

Erik

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LI & menhaden

Sam, right, forgot you grew up in CT on the Sound, your local knowledge is very good.

The grandparents that taught me about seaweed lived on Shelter Island, on the eastern tip of Long Island, so the Bonacker tradition you mention had strong sway, even still.

Regarding the poor soil out there, kelp wasn't the only innovation, of course. Its soils were played out by late 1700s by colonists who'd been there for over 100 years already, and that's when my hometown, Southold, resident Ezra L'Hommidieu remembered the pilgrim story and noted the enormous schools of menhaden swimming offshore. He published about it, got the farmers to start fishing coops to bring them ashore, and revitalized LI farming.

But then the whole country got the idea, and fishing down the food chain really got serious. Soon big fishing concerns pushed the farmers out of the business and back into farming solely, to the point that we see Omega Protein.

What I'm getting around to is that I tried this method myself last year - in May I discovered a package of menhaden in my freezer, leftover striped bass bait, and planted one under each winter squash plant, and surprise, the plants were enormous.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

nice

Kucinich is great.

Erik

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rights

That's right, mreinbold, a woman has rights, a fetus does not.

According rights to a river or whatnot is not as harebrained as you think, and would not require a seance. But it would likely lead to more articulate defense of natural ecosystems and therefore healthier people, women, and yeah, babies.

ErikOn New Ecuador constitution would give nature inalienable rights posted 1 year, 2 months ago 14 Responses

LOL

LOL. Good list. How about "children are not a choice." That ought to come up a few dozen times. The right is swinging into top gear on this, and equating choice directly with abortion, when it's actually just, well, a choice.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

Douglas

Thanks, Russ, for the language from Wm Douglas. I think that says it as well as one can.

The PA story is indeed a good one, and the grassroots group in question is the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund,  http://www.celdf.org

Here's what they're all about:

ON SEPTEMBER 19, 2006, the Tamaqua Borough of Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, passed a sewage sludge ordinance that recognizes natural communities and ecosystems within the borough as legal persons for the purposes of enforcing civil rights. It also strips corporations that engage in the land application of sludge of their rights to be treated as "persons" and consequently of their civil rights. One of its effects is that the borough or any of its residents may file a lawsuit on behalf of an ecosystem to recover compensatory and punitive damages for any harm done by the land application of sewage sludge. Damages recovered in this way must be paid to the borough and used to restore those ecosystems and natural communities.

According to Thomas Linzey, the lawyer from the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund who assisted Tamaqua Borough, this ordinance marks the first time in the history of municipalities in the United States that something like this has happened. Coming after more than 150 years of judicially sanctioned expansion of the legal powers of corporations in the U.S., this ordinance is more than extraordinary--it is revolutionary. In a world where the corporation is king and all forms of life other than humans are objects in the eyes of the law, this is a small community's Boston tea party.

Taken from the Orion magazine article, "If Nature Had Rights" :

http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/5 ...

CELDF runs 'democracy schools' all over the country to help community activists confront corporate power.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

a loss

That's a loss. I was wondering recently how old he must be. 95 ain't too shabby.

One Straw Revolution is magnificent. I picked it up in a used bookstore for $5 when I was a farm apprentice, and then found out that it's worth $100. Out of print, and still on my bookshelf. So if any o' you find a copy for cheap, buy it.

And then read it (Jonas). And you'll see that Fukuoka essentially founded permaculture, based on good old fashioned natural-history-style observation, and worked out some very elegant systems for growing food. But he didn't do-nothing, it was still a lot of work, but it was elegant and bountiful. He grew veggies and fruit in a polyculture guild, ahead of his time, and rice, too, and the rice bit was the genius part, to me.

He demonstrated that rice paddies don't need to be flooded for the whole growing season. He thought it was a waste of water, and bad for biodiversity, and too good for mosquitoes, to leave the paddies flooded. He'd observed that rice grows just fine on dry ground, and that the only purpose of the water he saw his neighbors leaving in the paddy was to keep weeds down.

So he'd plant the rice and flood the paddy, and leave it like that until the rice had a big head start and all weeds were inhibited, then he drained it and let the rice luxuriate and tower over the weeds. No more water needed, unless it got dry.

Voila. Why not do this everywhere it works on a planet running out of supplies of clean fresh water? It's not 'do nothing' it's 'do intelligently.'

But more to the point, why not grow food in ways that we can observe are harmonious, just based on what we see happening? We've all got a Fukuoka to call on, and One Straw Revolution is the best place to start drawing on that.

Erik

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sigh

I'm so sick of things like this. Please, let rbgh die, already...

Erik

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dodgy

This link to a news story about the study ought to have been in the original post but it got lost somewhere:

http://www.efinancialnews.com/usedition/people/content/24 ...

Yes, the sample size is really small - that doesn't always make a bad study, but also picking the 10 and then saying that in every case shareholder activism is bad for share price is definitely questionable.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

tilapia

Jon, indeed, those are good choices usually, but watch the source, esp the tilapia. Much of the tilapia fillets coming from overseas (largely China, and South America) are treated in a preservative bath. And are grown with antibiotic laced food.

US based tilapia farms do not use preservatives, according to their industry lobby group.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

sonar continued

In addition, this news from ace grassroots group Ocean Conservation Research, just received:

"Nature journal filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for a Navy report on the impacts of Sonar on whales.  The article...is remarkable because it indicates behavioral effects, not just catastrophic effects such as stranding or "embayments."

It also discusses Peter Tyack's hypothesis that beaked whales are responding to the sonar signals as a "mimic" signal to orca vocalizations - their top predator."

ErikOn Greens and Navy reach compromise over low-frequency sonar posted 1 year, 3 months ago 2 Responses

Mass

Yes, community choice aggregation is an option in Mass, I believe, and it is indeed a good move.

The grid in the NE definitely needs help - negawatts particulalry but also some new renewable supply side sources...we were a hair's breadth from a brownout last summer on a normal hot day due to a couple plants being offline.

In addition in Mass, we now have a rule coming down that will allow municipalities to own their own electricity source, which deregulation in MA had disallowed previously. Odds are that any new project will be small/city scale and renewable.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

junk

Oh my lord, how rich is that, industrial meat raised on junk food.

It's amazing to think about feeding highly processed food to critters just to make meat. Such a waste, but I suppose the chips and m/ms could be, what, old or unfit for human consumption? Guess that'd make it waste recycling, but feeding animals junk just sounds like a bad idea.

Erik

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true

True, it'd help everyone to cool it on Iran, but that doesn't seem to be of interest to Cheney & co, if you believe Seymour Hersh:

"Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has revealed the Bush administration recently held a meeting in Vice President Cheney's office to discuss ways to provoke a war with Iran. Hersh said it was considered during the meeting to stage an incident where it would appear that Iranian boats had attacked US forces in the Straits of Hormuz.

Seymour Hersh: "There was a dozen ideas proffered how to trigger a war. The one that interested me the most was, why don't we build--we, in our shipyard--build four or five boats that look like Iranian PT boats, put Navy Seals on them with a lot of arms, and, the next time one of our boats goes through the Straits of Hormuz, start a shoot-up. Might cost some lives. And it was rejected, because you can't have Americans killing Americans. But that's the kind of--that's the level of stuff we are talking about: provocation. But that was rejected."

Seymour Hersh discussed the report during a recent interview at the Campus Progress journalism conference."

- Democracy Now, Aug 1

Not even an original idea. It's like they think that the Gulf of Tonkin incident was never reported on. Incredible.

Erik

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EF and RAN

Sure, kinda, but how many of their policy and action initiatives are driven by their members and supporters these days, and not by career organizers, policy-heads, and strategists?

I'm saying, what of "the Step it Up type groups, the one-off coalitions, the anti coal swarm" type groups, which are here now, gone next month. They're part of the picture.

Erik

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awful

The GOPs brinksmanship will cripple the US wind industry in the short run - some companies who bank on the tax credits which were merely holding any new projects for 2009 and beyond are now sending their business overseas. The US just became the world leader in wind generation I heard somewhere (it used to have that title, I thought, but must've lost it at some point) but guarantee it'll lose the title again, with no decision on the tax credit likely before November by the looks of it.

Erik

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oy

This notion of creating economic opportunity in Kentucky via flattening mountains for coal was well debunked by Erik Reece in his great book Lost Mountain, from waaay back in 2003. Reece talked about how strip malls and office parks were unrented, businesses failed, and in the case of the one out of state corp that took a huge economic windfall package from the state to bring its call center to a MTR zone - well, it moved its 100 call center jobs to another country once the incentives ran out.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

costs

Wolverine: it does cost real money to get certified - that's how organic certification agents and boards get paid - and this is a cost that not all small farms can bear after they pay for the seeds, growing supplies, and the zillion other things that have to be bought before a single leaf of lettuce is ready for sale.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

The Great Lakes Town Hall

Thanks, good post. It's tremendously important to have this dialogue about the Lakes. I'd like to point out a place that dialogue is happening online that's proving to be particularly rich:  The Great Lakes Town Hall.

It's a project of the grassroots group Biodiversity Project in Madison. Because residents of the Great Lakes are divided by such large physical and political distances, and recognizing that the Lakes are a crucial resource in so many ways, it is designed to bridge those distances. It provides 'a "space" where residents from all across the Great Lakes basin - and all walks of life within the basin - can come together to identify common concerns, set the political agenda, share and develop collective solutions, and demand - as a public - that the Lakes are clean, abundant, and natural for generations to come.'

It's great to see the conversation between scores of folks and the initiatives going on there. Have a look and get involved, here:

http://www.greatlakestownhall.org

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

cider

That sounds like something to do. Haven't heard of anyone trying that, but why not.

Someone emailed me suggesting that craigslist or another community listings service should list links to fruit maps/foraging events. I think that's a pretty good idea...idealist.org, too, might be a good place to spread the word about such things that are zip code dependent.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

ships

Grey: add to that stat the fact I heard on the radio the other day that there aren't any drilling ships technically available to begin this new wave of offshore exploration. It'd be ironic if the US had to build a fleet of such things, for the remainder of what's left offshore.

ErikOn Top Dems in Congress open to possible compromise deal on offshore drilling posted 1 year, 4 months ago 6 Responses

huh

You mean money can't buy you anything in America?

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

hybrid

Yes, Grey, Coop Power is actually looking at units right now that do both PV and hot water in one unit. Not sure if it's a product we'll recommend and help members install, but it's a great idea and some companies are offering such things.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

naw

Mac: I don't think that a vision of a world of smaller ag means everyone has to either farm or starve.

Richard Heinberg has estimated that this country could feed itself with 400,000 new farmers tending smaller acreages. Not a very scary number. And like others have said above, it's a good life growing things. I managed 2 organic farms a decade ago, and it was a great experience.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

14 million

That number, of tons of wild fish, really surprised me. I didn't think any sector or country could eat more fish than Japan. It's hair raising.

Anchovies ought to star in caesar salad or on pizza.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

birds, turtles

Wisci: yes, I think that birds will often forsake a nest box close to a feeder, b/c feeders attract lots of attention from predators like hawks, cats, snakes, etc. Maybe move that one next year.

Love the enthusiasm to save the turtle, on your and the 12 year old's part. Those things will move far, and can smell distant water bodies.

About culverts, I think wildlife use them well. On my land I've noted fishers using them in preference to going over the road. Big ones are used by all sorts of critters. A recent article in a Mass wildlife mag had a photo montage from a motion sensitive camera that documented skunks, coons, coyotes, deer, otters, and more using them regularly to avoid the motorized public...why not turtles?

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

modern?

Mac: I don't think anyone here would advocate doing away with all modern practices, but it's pretty clear that we can't continue relying on chemicals to feed the world. Organic ag produces just as much food at a lesser cost for inputs, inputs that won't destroy the atmosphere or require mining of diminshing resources. see report:

"Regenerative farming practices, local knowledge and regionally appropriate technology favored over biotech and industrial agriculture" :

http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/20080418/fp1

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

trains in the news

NPR had two stories in the last 2 days on trains: the first more relevant here:

Amtrak Ridership Swells in Rural and Urban Areas

Morning Edition, June 25, 2008 · As gas prices soar, so does ridership on Amtrak. The long-struggling passenger railroad had its biggest May ever, with a 12 percent spike in travelers. Amtrak officials predict the rest of the year will be just as good. While the railroad is seeing heavy jumps in populated areas, travelers in rural parts of the country are also getting on board.

Listen here:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9186 ...

also:

All Things Considered, June 24, 2008 · Despite skyrocketing oil prices, freight railroads are thriving. They are taking advantage of their greater fuel efficiency to haul more goods across the country. And they've mounted an aggressive marketing campaign to take even more.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9185 ...

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

incentive

Nukbuddy, well I'm shocked, shocked, to hear that an energy project is going to receive public assistance of some kind. What nuclear plants would exist without it? Even money-printing drilling operations get free cash.

That's besides the point, the state is desperate to incentivize ANY kind of renewable development, which they are required to do under law, but the utilities here don't want to create any, just buy and resell it from elsewhere. There's little utility leadership in terms of new sources.

ErikOn Massachusetts town could be first to build offshore wind farm in U.S. posted 1 year, 5 months ago 31 Responses

classy

Nice poll! Sounds like one of the questions should have been, hey, you want some free money? Bet that'd also prove a positive response.

I wish the media would report more heavily on how little oil we're talking about here, in terms of drilling new wells offshore.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

nice

Monsanto: managing perception since 1901.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

b/w

W: as a freelance photographer specializing in black/white, I like to think that I can see the world really well in this medium. However, you have me beat.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

challenging

This is a good development, but one that'll take a while. The twin challenges of higher wind speeds and wave action that causes a floating platform to pitch requires significant engineering. The anchoring system is also very technical, and unless done right will cause difficulties for the platform. Also, the cables to carry the power generated will have to be very flexible and long, but the oil industry has developed good systems in this regard already.

Advantages include moving them far enough offshore that there's likely to be no opposition to their siting outside of fishermen, and the fact that they can be assembled in port and towed out to the site, rather than being assembled on site at sea, which is challenging and expensive for fixed platform turbines.  

The platform being tested for a while now consists of a massive floating platform and relatively small turbine, but they're learning a lot from it.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

o boy

I don't trust anyone attached to the bile-pile that is the US Chamber of Commerce. I've never heard them take a position on an issue that I cared about that wasn't the opposite of my own.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

land

I sure hope that installations like concentrated solar, as necessary as they are, are landed in places like brownfields, etc, close to the markets they'll serve, and not willy nilly carving up the remainder of the open habitat the critters of the southwest and southern CA rely on.  

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

airships...

scatter: the authors of the Transport Revolutions book discussed here

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/6/3/84914/21913

talk at length about airships in the book...possible that one of the excerpts available on their site linked from the above post has more info for you.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

one more

One more example of how Heifer is building food security and aiding the planet: in Ghana, they have a new project providing 'grasscutters' - a popular culinary critter/protein source, like a pika - to families who can raise them for the household and also to sell, in part to offset the market for bushmeat. The poaching of wildlife for the bushmeat trade is devastating natural communities nearly as fast as logging in some areas, so it is very possible that this can take some of the pressure off.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

tracking

Thanks, Ben, interesting. I agree that a recession is going to be a challenge to green issues, but I feel like they will track more closely with other mainstream concerns now. In 1990 in the US there was a similar popular green blossoming that crumbled later, but seeds were sown and a lot of grassroots groups flourished in the decade, building toward a mainstream consensus on green issues thru land protection, cleaning up rivers, lobbying, and advocacy.

At this point more people than ever have invested in solutions personally, whether its their kids' environmental degrees, a solar panel or two, or a million driveways with a Prius.  

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

grid

Yes on the EVs. I wonder, though, if the "Revolutions" authors meant 'plugins' or not. From the talk, seemed like they were advocating that EVs and transport vehicles on hiways as well as rails would be getting their power from cables or other in situ sources on the roadway. Could be mistaken. Guess I'd need to read the book, but $99 per copy is a little steep. Guess it's aimed at academics.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

re: refining

Well, good to hear that not all nuke fuels are being refined thanks to coal these days, I guess.

Max: re: "How many people have died from nuclear accidents in the industry's 50-year history? Exactly 58, all from Chernobyl."

Check the thyroid cancer rates associated with Chernobyl, and add the number of folks who've had their thyroids completely removed, obligating them to receive thyroid hormone treatment daily for the rest of their lives or else.

Also the wards full of malformed children.

These people may not have died, but what is the quality of their living?

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

really good

I bet the flyover she did was courtesy of SouthWings out of Asheville.

This is another nice shot over the bow of MTR.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

neutral

True, dehada. And regardless of whether gasoline emits less CO2 than biodiesel, if your fuel is waste-derived, it's virtually carbon neutral.

There is no reused gasoline.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

biodiesel coop selling B100

GreenMom, Biodiversivist is right in part, but it's all about the feedstock. It's possible that your possible coop's fuel has little climate impact to do with 'conversion' of cropland, but look into it. (But biodiesel beats fossil in most pollution categories by a goodly margin, except NO2)

In western Mass we can buy biodiesel from 100% waste/non-food sources, which is the best case scenario, and in which case, Mr Romm is off target with this post. I don't know of any recycled gasoline running in a Prius.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

paying attention

"measures to further encourage investor confidence [in the nuclear industry] through improved safety, expanded manufacturing base, and waste disposal solutions..."

Good to see that he's not left investors out in the cold on this one...the public, too, would be very encouraged by a steep increase in the safety and storage categories.

But how many new manufacturing jobs can there be that aren't actually just mining or construction jobs?

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

Vermont Yankee

There's an reactor in southern VT that just got caught trying to raid its decommissioning cookie jar of cash to pay for 'onsite storage' of spent fuel it needs now. Which would leave VT taxpayers holding the bag later for what the company spends now.

The owners, Entergy, claim that it doesn't look like, well, what it looks like, but it comes back to this dollar issue all the time. The costs of doing nucular business are enormous, and they're always trying to get someone else to pay.

Citizens Awareness Network and New England Coalition are constantly on top of their shenanigans.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

bears repeating

Mangrove Action Project in Port Angeles, WA is a key grassroots group combating the loss of mangroves worldwide:

  http://www.mangroveactionproject.org

MAP partners with mangrove forest communities, NGOs, researchers and local governments to conserve and restore mangrove forests and related coastal ecosystems, while promoting community-based, sustainable management of coastal resources.

They also do really cool eco-work-study tours on conserving mangroves. Though I don't think they've taken a group to Myanmar any time recently. Usually they go to India and Thailand, I think.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

N2

Not that I'm shilling for tire dealers and their nitrogen programs, but air is only 3/4 nitrogen, and its a big difference to put 100% nitrogen in there if it leaks out more slowly. But whatever. If it helps some people keep their tires inflated for just that little bit longer, I say why not.

Lower speed limits is a better idea though.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

drive-easy-conserve

If you drive slowly to save fuel, then get yourself one of these bumper stickers to warn or educate:

http://www.greenslowmovingvehicle.com/

The originator of this grassroots effort has been distributing these stickers all over the country and has started seeing them on strangers' cars around his home of La Crosse, WI.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

weak dollar

Last week's interview on Food Chain Radio with an international food broker was pretty enlightening. The main point this fella pointed out is missing from the list: the strength of the euro/the weak dollar: he says that it used to be everyone wanted to sell to the US, now the euro is getting the most attention from food producers and brokers, and so the rest of us have to compete with them.

He also talks about how the low price of wheat last year spurred problems, in part b/c of its coincidence with the AU drought.

Availabe mp3 here:

http://foodchainradio.com/shows/585Bcheap.mp3

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

both

John, I like your vision. The farmer piece especially. But until we get there, retrofitting our existing infrastructure with horizontal units makes a good deal of sense.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

yes

Yes, we need to get the kids outside: it's their natural environment. Kids of all kinds tend to thrive outdoors, especially the ones that have lots of energy. I worked a lot with kids in outdoor settings in California (envi ed science camps) and was usually surprised how much even the 'problem' kids enjoyed it all: the tough gang-banger types, and one memorable bully that turned out to be a real joy and went days without needing his ritalin.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

carnage

The most interesting thing to happen on E-Day here was across the street from the Orion office a healthy and majestic fir tree was dismantled piece by piece by a crew and fed into a chipper. Ironic.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

interesting

Yes, this sort of arrangement of monetizing ecosystem services looks to be one way forward. The discussion we had about it recently here

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/3/18/84752/1564

was pretty good, and then I turned up this eg of it being done with rainforests, maybe you saw this too:

http://www.globalcanopy.org/main.php?m=4&sm=16

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

right

The other day I saw the one with Al Sharpton and Pat Robertson sitting on the couch...interesting to see Robertson taking a public stand for this campaign, no matter how much he makes the skin crawl.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

Radishes!

I've got broccoli and romaine starts going, plus lettuce, greens, garlic and peas of two kinds coming up from seed - two weeks ago I was still shoveling the snow off, that's how late the winter went here.

Also coming up are radishes, and Wiscidea, if you're reading this, the time tested kids' first gardening project is just that: your nephew should be helped to grow some radishes this year, even if he doesn't like to eat spicy stuff like that. Radishes sprout so readily from seed that the child can scarcely fail at it, and then they make a rewarding and colorful harvest in a short time.

Many a kid has been hooked on gardening by the lowly radish.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

picturesque

Great idea to build awareness of this important number. Besides the straightforward interpretations of 350 like the cyclists, etc, I think Bill's right that this can be tremendous in terms of the opportunities for blending the arts with activism - the conceptual framework of 350 can be overlaid on all sorts of popular art from visual to sculptural and performance, increasing the avenues to reach new people.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

BC

Here's an article I wish I'd linked to in the post from British Columbia:

"Run-of-river independent power projects have gained environmental steam, but are they really the right way to go?"

http://www.straight.com/article-111552/electric-companies ...

Erik

..

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

Obama

Full transcript is here,

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0804/13/se.01.html ...

but this is what he said to Rev Cizik's question:

OBAMA:

So, look, the -- one of the things I draw from the Genesis story is the importance of us being good stewards of the land, of this incredible gift. And I think there have been times where we haven't been and this is one of those times where we've got to take the warning seriously.

But I think that we are seeing enough warning signs for us to take this seriously. And part of what my religious faith teaches me is to take an intergenerational view, to recognize that we are borrowing this planet from our children and our grandchildren.

And so we've got this obligation to them, which means that we've got to make some uncomfortable choices. And where I think potentially religious faith and the science of global warming converge is precisely because it's going to be hard to deal with.

We have to find resources in ourselves that allow us to make those sacrifices where we say, you know what? We're not going to leave it to the next generation. We're not going to wait.

We are going to put in place a cap-and-trade system that controls the amount of greenhouse gases that are going into the atmosphere. And we know that that requires us to make adjustments in terms of how we use energy. We've got to be less wasteful, both as a society and in our own individual lives.

And having faith, believing that this planet and this world extends beyond us, it's not just here for us, but it's here for, you know, more generations to come. I think religion can actually bolster our desire to make those sacrifices now. And that's why, as president, I hope to be able to rally the entire world around the importance of us being good stewards of the land.

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

yes

Yes, I was hoping the climate piece was going to be more prominent, but the fact that it was part of the debate, purposefully, was big.

Hillary's response was not exciting. I forget what Obama said.

The broadcast cut Sally's question off, and she was planning on really dialing in the moral dimension of climate disaster and poor communities/countries. Too bad.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

Maine

There's been a string of veggie oil heists in Southern Maine recently, too...

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

ocelots

If this wall results in fewer ocelots ranging into the SW US, the USFWS could always look here for some that could be introduced:

http://www.rathergood.com/ocelot/

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

robust response

FWIW: a letter to Time's editors from 25x25 - http://www.25x25.org - of interest to me is this part: "the UN Food and Agriculture Organization almost immediately distanced itself from the remarks. The head of the UN Food Program recently noted that higher energy costs, erratic weather and low stocks are big factors contributing to the high cost of food around the globe." ie, not biofuels. Interesting remark coming from the UN body in charge of such things.

And this is one of the letter's strongest points, vamping on the FAO message, seems like:

The implication that biofuel production is responsible for the destruction of the Amazon rain forest ignores the reality that ever increasing worldwide demand for food and fiber is the primary cause of land use change in this and other regions. Simply eliminating biofuels will not stop land use changes from occurring

Anyhoo, here's the whole thing for your interest:

25x'25 Responds to Time Magazine Biofuels Article with Letter to the Editor  
4/3/08

Responding to widespread inaccuracies in this week's Time magazine cover story, the 25x'25 National Steering Committee is responding with a letter to the editors of Time expressing disappointment with the questionable characterization of biofuels and their role in the issue of greenhouse gas emissions in "The Clean Energy Scam," by Michael Grunwald. The letter was authored by steering committee member and former Congressman Thomas W. Ewing, who is also the Immediate Past Chairman of the USDA and DOE Biomass Research and Development Technical Advisory Committee. The entire letter follows:

--

As a former Member of Congress and a leader in a diverse alliance of agricultural, environmental and conservation organizations working together to advance clean energy solutions, I am greatly disturbed with Time magazine's April 7th feature story on biofuels. In this article, Michael Grunwald criticizes biofuels yet offers no alternative to using petroleum to meet our energy needs - much of which comes from the Middle East.

Members of our alliance share the author's anxiety for the continued health of the Amazon rain forest and other "carbon sinks" that nature has provided around the globe. As champions of many forms of land-based renewable energy (biomass, wind energy, solar power, geothermal energy and hydropower, in addition to biofuels), we agree that environmentally sensitive lands should not be exploited in pursuit of renewable fuels.

Unfortunately, the story's message of concern is undermined by misinformation about biofuels and an over-simplified analysis of complex systems. The implication that biofuel production is responsible for the destruction of the Amazon rain forest ignores the reality that ever increasing worldwide demand for food and fiber is the primary cause of land use change in this and other regions. Simply eliminating biofuels will not stop land use changes from occurring, and in countries like Haiti that have already lost their forests, biofuels could help reestablish forests and offer more affordable and sustainable energy options. Similarly, information in the story about a recent study, which claims land-use changes brought about by increased biofuel production are producing more greenhouse gas emissions (Searchinger et al.), only tells half the story. What is missing is that Searchinger's methodologies have been widely questioned by respected biofuel life-cycle analysis researchers such as Michael Wang, with the Center for Transportation Research at the Argonne National Laboratory, who counter that Searchinger et al. used outdated, if not incorrect, data to reach their conclusions.

The story's reference to a UN food expert's dramatic condemnation of biofuel production fails to mention that the UN Food and Agriculture Organization almost immediately distanced itself from the remarks. The head of the UN Food Program recently noted that higher energy costs, erratic weather and low stocks are big factors contributing to the high cost of food around the globe.

Of particular concern is the ready dismissal of emerging technologies that will allow us to produce next generation biofuels from non-food feedstocks sustainably grown on underutilized and marginal lands not suited for food production. Conservation tillage and other agriculture and forestry residue management practices used to produce biomass energy feedstocks can also provide a constant buildup of soil organic carbon. Researchers at Ohio State have concluded that the total potential of carbon sequestration in U.S. soils, counting croplands, grazing lands and woodlands, is nearly 600 million metric tons of carbon, or the equivalent of more than 2,200 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions - about 33 percent of total U.S. emissions.

We encourage the editors of Time to contribute to a much-needed discussion of the role renewable resources will play in improving national security and the environment while moving us closer to energy independence. We simply ask that they demand a basic level of accuracy and balance from the stories that they run.

For a full list of talking points relative to the Time article,

http://25x25.nonprofitsoapbox.com/storage/25x25/documents ...  

--

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

yes

GE: yes, folks are looking at other angles too with algae, ie cellulosic ethanol, but biodiesel gets the most attention. Your idea sounds good, wonder who might be looking at that.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

nice

Thanks Ted. Yes, Rising Tide reports over 100 actions yesterday.

In our town we just handed out fact sheets on the fossil industry at the Network's Green Drinks chapter meeting last night. We don't have much for picturesque targets in the sleepy Berkshire Hills...

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

it depends

Depends who's donating the money, but most foundations would rather fund actual change, grassroots groups with specific plans and measurable impact.

But Gore's probably raised a lot from individuals, folks who liked the media message of his movie and which might like to see their money go into more media, like an ad campaign.

As far as impact goes, you'd have to be for the funding of grassroots groups.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

Fossil Fools day begins with arrests

Press release just received:

COAL PLANT BLOCKADE KICKS OFF INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PROTEST AGAINST FOSSIL FUEL INDUSTRY IN THE US - 8 ARRESTED

April, 1st - Proclaiming April 1st "Fossil Fools Day," climate change activists with the international Rising Tide network and its allies in the US, Canada, UK, and Australia targeted companies responsible for runaway carbon dioxide emissions today.

North Carolina residents kicked off the day of action in the US at 6:30am by locking themselves to bulldozers to stop the construction of Duke Energy's massive Cliffside coal-fired power plant being built 50 miles west of Charlotte. "In the face of catastrophic climate change, building a new coal plant is tantamount to signing a death sentence for our generation," said local farmer Matt Wallace, while locked to a bulldozer. "Building this plant would lock us into another 50 years of burning coal at a time when we need to be doing everything in our power to end our reliance on fossil fuels."

Shortly after activists locked themselves to construction equipment, police arrived on the scene and arrested 8 people, using pain compliance holds and tazers on those locked down.

Earlier this morning, climate activists in Nottingham, UK blockaded the offices of E-on, a company trying to build a new generation of coal-fired power stations in the UK, while another group in Wales halted work at one of the biggest opencast coal mines in Europe. Globally, more than 150 actions were carried out on April 1st.

"The Fossil Fools in government and industry are playing games with our future: the time for lip service and half-measures is over," said Jane Calhoun, who took part in shutting down the Cliffside construction site. "Direct action is necessary to stop those who watch the planet burn while counting the money they make from the fire."

Leading climate scientists such as NASA's James Hansen believe that dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions must begin immediately to avoid catastrophic climatic shifts, yet most policy proposals consist of modest goals that are decades off. Today's confrontational actions reflect an urgency that many activists see as missing from the current discussions in the media, congress, and industry.

The actions also reflect the activists' conviction that the climate initiatives being presented by corporations and government have been focused on promoting consumption-based, profit-driven "solutions" that only serve to maintain business as usual.

"The focus on switching lightbulbs or putting a green spin on practices like burning coal is a dangerous distraction from the root causes of this crisis," said Karen Bailey of Rising Tide. "To survive climate change, we need to end the extraction of fossil fuels, reduce rich people's energy consumption, localize economies and revolutionize public transportation."

The Fossil Fools Day of Action was called for by the international Rising Tide network, active in the UK, US, and Australia, and was joined by Rainforest Action Network, students active in the Energy Action Coalition, the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition, Earth First!, and the Australian Student Environment Network.

Building on the momentum of today's actions, the Rising Tide network is collaborating on international "Camps for Climate Action" this summer in a half-dozen countries. The events focus on mobilizing the grassroots movement for climate justice and will culminate in direct actions against local climate criminals. In the US, camps are planned in New York, Virginia, and Oregon. Last year's climate camp in the UK targeted Heathrow International Airport and brought international attention to the climate impacts of flying.

Action updates and photos will be posted at www.fossilfoolsday.org as reports come in.

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

ideas

Thanks for the ideas on making my stream go to work for me, kiwiiano and naught. I'm not a DIY/tinkering kind of guy, so the nano hydro setup is not very attractive. But sounds like a good idea. naught: I've spoken to a couple different installers who install microhydro here in the NE US and they declined to even come for a site visit, it sounded that marginal to them. Then I emailed a few manufacturers of units, and they also sounded unenthusiastic about my prospects, when considering ROI. I'm not off the grid, and have a typical house with usual needs, so like I said, it just doesn't make sense right now. I need to reduce my electrical loads first, and that is its own investment.

The other thing is the regulations: I just see it a a boondoggle. For eg: the conservation commission in a neighboring town tried to shut down a guy's generator b/c they claimed that it heated the water in the stream from the friction of the water hitting the turbine (!) and was therefore bad for cold loving trout. He then demonstrated that the setup actually kept the stream cooler, as the water in the penstock ran a shorter length than it did in its meandering streambed. But the con comm didn't back down, and he only beat the rap by showing that the commissioners entered his property without permission to gather evidence.

So there's a lack of understanding out there which seems risky.

As for the rooftop hydro idea, it's a good idea. I think in most cities it'd be smarter to keep that water in tanks on the roof and use that to both cool the building and water vegetable gardens. But in a rainy climate, could make a lot of sense.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

thanks

Quite right bigTom, MW is what was meant. Just updated that. Thanks.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

David...

"the idea that grassroots green groups should stay...in their largely ineffectual niches, out of sight and out of mind for the vast bulk of the U.S. population, baffles me"

No one suggests such a thing. GreenNPR merely wanted to know whom to trust. I trust any organization whose meetings I can show up at, or which I can call up for answers without being brushed off by a VP for External Affairs, or any of the other cogs in the Big 10's bureaucracies.

The reality is that we need both the big bloated nationals and the grassroots. The nationals are great for certain things like big time conservation efforts, research, and lobbying. But for this, they rake in 90% of the donations made every year to green causes.

The grassroots, though, are the guys that are the LEAST out of sight/mind to most folks, b/c they're the folks who come to our kids classrooms, buy that farm on the corner about to be dozed for condos, organize community haz waste drives, and advocate for good green policy on a local level...they work where we live. They just lack the resources to expand their missions to the point that everyone sees what they're doing.

The nationals and their enormous PR departments monopolize the national green debate and corner the market on visibility thanks to the power of the purse. That's why chemical companies come calling: their brands are good for business.

You yourself have lamented the lack of financial support for small, agile grassroots groups like Cornucopia Institute:

"...I wish scrappy, effective little organizations like Cornucopia got more of the philanthropy money sloshing around the green world."

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/8/30/065/19672

I rave about this b/c it's my mission to: I don't mind the nationals and their agenda so much as the perception that they represent the green movement. They don't. They're good, and are doing good things, but they're not elected or representative, and sometimes they act like tyrants.

If you want to support lasting change, then you fund the grassroots better, as Mark Dowie said so well here in Grist in 2005:

http://www.grist.org/comments/soapbox/2005/05/19/mark_dow ...

My 2 cents, as usual.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

re: shivering

Yeah, that Saving Seals story is from your neighborhood, no?

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

awww

"People who don't dry their sheets and towels on the line, because crunchy is not their style should try a half cup of vinegar in the rinse cycle."

Awww, so I gotta hang out near the washer so I can catch it when it goes to the rinse cycle? That sounds like WORK.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

pledge

Good idea, yes, the pledge is here, I think:

http://middlebury.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2269985114

My wife and I dry everything (except towels and sheets) on a rack or on hangers in the house. Besides the energy savings and all, it's just better for the clothes, they last much longer.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

religion

Ah, but religious leaders are making a difference in the world on green issues, Pompey Road. Don't write 'em off. Have a look at Interfaith Power and Light's (A religious response to global warming) blog if you need some proof:

http://interfaithpowerandlight.blogspot.com/

Check the interview with the Southern Baptist leader on climate change...

IPL is only one eg of many. Faith in Place in Chicago is another stellar grassroots example: http://faithinplace.org/

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

peak oil etc

Richard Heinberg's new book is called "Peak Everything: waking up to a century of declines" and is one I'd recommend. He's been on the peak oil topic for a while, but this book takes that and other baselines which society is likely to exceed to a new level.

http://www.powells.com/biblio?PID=719&cgi=product& ...

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

LI snobs

Sam, I think Sunny Green refers not to Cape Wind but to the offshore wind project proposed for the south shore of LI. That project was recently halted, ostensibly by economics, but it's widely believed that opposition (from LI snobs?) had a lot to do with the dreary economic reforecast the utility cited when it killed the idea.

ErikOn Feds approve floating liquefied-natural-gas terminal in Long Island Sound posted 1 year, 8 months ago 12 Responses

Sierra Club

Rats, I was hoping this news was going to keep the Sahara Clubbers from sending me their thrice a year solicitation complete with unrecyclable window decal and offer for me to get my very own crappy "1912 John Muir historical replica rucksack" if I just sign up now...honestly, how much waste is involved with these crapsacks alone?

But I guess they're a non-profit, sorta, so I can look forward to more...

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

outcome

Canis, I didn't get to the hearings, but a full snapshot is here, and here's a taste, "By 6pm, several hundred people had taken their seats in the auditorium, a figure that was to swell to about one thousand over the course of the evening."

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/ate/story?id ...

And Amazing, you'll be interested to read at the bottom of the link above about a proposal to build 120 floating wind turbines in deep water 23 miles south of Martha's Vineyard. Which pleases Cape Wind opponents...

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

activism

Rebecca Solnit hits it pretty square with this. It echoes a lot of what we're seeing in the grassroots activism world of late: unexpected and unconventional alliances between enviros and those formerly perceived as having no stake in a green world are not only effective, they can be fun, and even when such collaborations don't work, the least they do is build community and understanding. Which is a pretty great outome.

James McMurtry is one quasi-country singer I think Gristmillers ought to check out if unfamiliar. True, he's a liberal from Austin and does write occasional songs like one, but most of his tunes hove to a rare middle america point of view. 'No more Buffalo' '60 Acres' and 'Choctaw Bingo' come to mind:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMd04FVyVRg

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

200

I think you're right, Sam.

Last night, at UMass Boston's Clark Athletic Center, over 200 people attended the fourth and final public hearing.

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

malfeasance

Paint the whole industry with malfeasance for the bad habits of some, if you like, but there's no excuse for dumping this stuff. Glycerin has those noted secondary uses and can be probably be burned for power, too, or digested to capture fuel-worthy gas.

These cases likely represent poor decisions on the part of middle managers that are now looking for alternative employment.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

organizing

Mihan:

While you're looking, why not apply to the Green Corps Organizer Training program? These folks will take all of your experience to date and train you to be a top flight organizer while paying you a pretty good salary. You can read the program's description here:

http://www.orionsociety.org/pages/ogn/viewposition.cfm?og ...

Lots of other jobs at the site as well in the category of advocacy, but this particular program is well recommended.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

nice

Great synthesis, Adam. I don't agree with davedenali that it is naive. There are climate activists from all walks of life, including conservatives and corporations, and this is not like winning an election...you don't need 51% of the public on your side to make change. My favorite paper on the topic says that a movement needs just 11% of the population to believe something strongly and take action on it. Not a big number.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

respect

AA: this isn't about respect, or meat being bad. The issue is the Catholic Church declaring that fish isn't meat, so it's parishoners can still eat meat even on days when they're supposed not to.

It's fine you choose to eat meat. Just include fish in that category.

Your call to be sensitive rings hollow, though, after saying you're disgusted with vegan eating habits.  

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

more info

Someone in the business of growing shellfish emailed me the following additional data which I edited down a bit - gives some interesting figures on the carbon sequestration abilities of shellfish:

Shellfish are very good at sequestering carbon - shell is about 13% carbon by weight and is resistant to decay unless exposed to strong acid.

...to sequester all of the excess CO2 being produced at todays rates...(it'd take) something like 14 trillion oysters. (we are growing about 53 billion on the east and gulf coasts today)

...not including wild (oysters) or (oysters grown in) canada or clams and came up with 53,321 metric tons of carbon being sequestered annually.

...shellfish aquaculture can be one of many solutions we need to incorporate in the process of fixing the (climate) problem.

And this is a hopeful note on ocean acidification:

As to whether the declining pH is going to be an issue.... I pray not. But as an oceanography grad student we were taught that the ocean's pH was one of those invariate numbers (except in small coastal pockets). The system was too large and had too much buffering capacity to ever move more than a fraction of a pH point. Like so much else I learned in school I am finding that these types of "truths" need to be reexamined in a fresh light. I expect that we are already seeing an impact on larvae in coastal waters. Their thin translucent shells are fragile and the ability of a microscopic larvae to fight a pH issue among all the other challenges they face may be one of the reasons why sets are on the decline in many areas.

If the fears are right and we start to impact the ability of shellfish (and more importantly microscopic foraminifera which are the basis for the chalk in the cliffs of Dover and elsewhere around the world) then I see a positive feedback loop where the failure of the environment to be able to naturally sequester tons of CO2 into shell actually accelerates the production of excess CO2 with disastrous impact.  I just hope we run out of oil and coal before that happens.

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

wolf news

This is very cool news.

But speaking of wolves, a farmer in the next town over from me in Massachusetts recently shot the state's first confirmed wolf in 160 years...

First wolf found in Mass. in 160 years

By Beth Daley, Boston Globe Staff

More than 160 years since hunters drove wolves out of Massachusetts, federal officials have confirmed finding a wild gray wolf in the state.

US Fish and Wildlife Service officials said today that genetic tests performed on an animal killed on a Shelburne farm in October, after it mauled more than a dozen sheep, showed that it was an eastern gray wolf.

"We have no indication that this wolf was ever held in captivity," said Thomas J. Healy, special agent in charge of the US Fish and Wildlife Service's Northeast Region. "But what we don't know about this wolf's origins far outweighs what we do know."

The confirmation is giving wildlife enthusiasts hope that the animal may one day reestablish itself in the forests of the Northeast. Wolves were aggressively hunted by farmers in the early 1800s until virtually none were left. The nearest established populations to New England are in Ontario and Quebec.

While the public often reports sighting wolves, most of those animals turn out to be coyotes or wolf-dog, wolf-coyote mixes, officials say. The last time a purebred wolf that did not live in captivity was found in New England was around 1992 in Maine.

The genetic tests on the 85-pound male were conducted by scientists at the wildlife service's National Forensic Laboratory in Ashland, Ore. Massachusetts and other wildlife biologists had previously said they doubted the wolf was a purebred.

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

spat

Here's a program that I ought to have mentioned in the original post: the Southold Program on Aquaculture Technology (SPAT) is training volunteers to culture oysters, scallops, and clams and grow them in floating racks in Peconic Bay on Long Island in NY...to help reseed the bay with mollusks.

http://www.spatcornell.org/

Hundreds of volunteer culturists have come thru the program at this point and some have started their own shellfish farms elsewhere in the Bay. Very cool.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

foresters and climate change

Backcut: I've enjoyed your comments on the various threads lately, and while I think you are right that there's more to this issue than just climate change, I encourage you to take a look at what the Forestry Guild is saying on the topic of climate change and forestry planning:

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/1/6/162022/2279

They're making recommendations to manage for climate change, anticipating catastrophic conversions in some areas due to temperature rises, but of course do advocate that overstocking be addressed aggressively, as you suggest.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

grassroots use of economic data

Yes, grassroot activists have been using economic data well to fight new coal projects for years now. An article in the new issue of Orion magazine on 'no new coal' activists affiliated with the Energy Justice Network spells it out well.

Overland...has a talent for exposing the financial weak spots of proposed power plants, and she has coached others on the list: "If you want to kill a power project, focus on economics."

Overland had for over a year been probing into a proposed coal plant, Mesaba, in northern Minnesota, that most environmental groups were unwilling to challenge because it featured the new IGCC technology...Eventually, Overland discovered that the costs of Mesaba had been quietly escalating...The more information Overland received, the more she became convinced that an aggressive assault on the cost estimates for Mesaba might be the key to derailing the project.

They prevailed on the issue of that Mesabe power plant. Story is here:

http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/5 ...

In the discussion forum attached to the article, there are anti-coal activists new to this idea receiving good $ info from some activists mentioned in the story, so that's cool to see.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

lousy

I wonder what this means for the $500 mn BP just decided to give UC Berkeley:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/ ...

..to spur research bring clean energy to market...if not a suspension of activities, it will at least bring a new heap of derision on 'ol UCB for working with this company.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

thanks

Thanks, guys. Bill Moyers has a podcast! This I will have to hear. Alex, agreed on Renewable Energy Access. I've listened to one edition so far and it was very interesting.

Jon, roger that on EcoTalk. It saddens me every time I think about Betsy not doing that show anymore.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

yes

Good advice as usual. And it's definitely true re: gov't and others having trouble recruiting applicants for important green jobs. A friend who runs a non-profit member group of the Orion Grassroots Network in Colorado recently told me that the state division of wildlife (or the state office of the USFWS? I forget now) was having no luck hiring biologists - they can't get enough applicants to justify a legitimate hiring process.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

if we run out of phosphorous...

...I suppose some enterprising mining company will offer to hoover it all up from the floor of the Gulf of Mexico, where much of it ends up after washing off of Midwest farm fields and into the Mississippi...

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

re: interesting

Yes, Doc, that is indeed interesting. Like you, I find mowing native prairie grass for fuel more interesting than a monoculture of switchgrass - and besides, I'm not on record, I don't think, as either an ethanol or a switchgrass proponent (though I do think fuel crops can be grown sustainably on a smaller scale with both brown AND green manures, like clover and such. The researchers in question are looking at a macro level/ecosystem-wide that is incompatible with husbandry)...

...big swaths of prairie grass would also be a nice thing for prairie chickens to hide in and for pronghorn and bison to munch on.

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

re: Fell for it

So it's axiomatic that one needs chemical additives to grow grass? No. Also, grass is a C4 photosynthesizing plant, the most drought tolerant pathway. I think you're thinking of corn, not grass, when you say things like that, dr X.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

another route

Here's another route, FWIW...lots of woulds and coulds in here, but:

"Processing biomass through a distributed network of fast pyrolyzers may be a sustainable platform for producing energy from biomass.

http://agron.scijournals.org/cgi/content/full/100/1/178

Fast pyrolyzers thermally transform biomass into bio-oil, syngas, and charcoal. The syngas could provide the energy needs of the pyrolyzer. Bio-oil is an energy raw material (~17 MJ kg-1) that can be burned to generate heat or shipped to a refinery for processing into transportation fuels. Charcoal could also be used to generate energy; however, application of the charcoal co-product to soils may be key to sustainability. Application of charcoal to soils is hypothesized to increase bioavailable water, build soil organic matter, enhance nutrient cycling, lower bulk density, act as a liming agent, and reduce leaching of pesticides and nutrients to surface and ground water."

And sequester that carbon in the soil...

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

oil leases

Actually, Canis, this image ain't nothin. Have a look at Seth's site, linked there under the caption, for world class AK photography: musk ox and caribou galore. But it's not nice to snitch folks' images for other uses. Tsk tsk.

So the news of the record bids for oil leases in the Chukchi Sea came out after I submitted this post yesterday. More fossil extraction right offshore from Kotzebue, to melt the Arctic once and for all...

"ANCHORAGE, Feb 6 (Reuters) - Oil companies bidding for drilling rights in U.S. federal waters of the Chukchi Sea off the northwest coast of Alaska have lodged high bids totaling over $2.662 billion, the U.S. Minerals Management Service said.

The high bids in the Chukchi Sea lease sale exceed the previous largest sale in the early 1980s, the MMS said."

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

re: How evil can they be?

Well, they ain't no angels. I've been told by buy local/independent biz activists that this big box chain has a history of bankrupting its suppliers, maybe even the makers of these little bonbons, so beware. The game, as described to me, is/was one of ordering so much product from suppliers and locking them into contracts to continue that unsustainable level of production until the little guys burn out and Trader Joes buys them, effectively annexing their product and brand.

Or maybe that's a 1/2 truth. Anyhoo, TJ is no mom n pop.

Erik
 

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

blinking

Well of course Bush blinked. That's what he's best at: watch him during any speech on Iraq or the economy and I bet he'll blink about 700 times...usually a pretty handy way to tell that someone's lying.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

thanks

Thanks, Wes. Duly noted.

But what do you mean, exactly, by this one being "a real competition," eh? I'm sure you must mean that it's an orchestrated contest and not a recognition program, and that you were not impugning the importance of pre-college kids taking action and being rewarded for it... ;)

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

making the connection

Interesting post, Ryan.

I think it's way easier these days to bring together folks/groups to discuss something like climate change, and take group action. If I may generalize, campus organizing in the 90s seemed to center largely on anti-war or anti-sweatshops, and those issues remained fairly siloed if broadly popular. Nowadays, folks are willing to draw connections between their own interests or experiences and place them in the context of what society is talking about. I wonder if it's got something to do with the internet, that we all feel more networked now. Certainly seeing the looming climate crisis has motivated a lot of that feeling...we're on a small planet full of a lot of people that need to learn to work together, fast.

Organizing and bringing together unusual coalitions of groups to discuss how to ramp up our mutual work for people and planet synergistically gets easier and easier. It's an ecological worldview coming into activism of late.

When Step it Up got started last January, the Orion Grassroots Network hosted a conference call with Bill McKibben for our 1,100 member organizations, saying that no matter what each of us is working on, from economic justice to water quality, it's time to say something together about the climate and hold a rally, and a huge number of them did so.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

MTR web tool

Here's an eye-opening web tool that shows your direct connection to mountaintop removal: just plug in your zip code and you get a map which shows what coal plants supply your home with power, and what mines those plants get their coal from:

http://ilovemountains.org/myconnection/

My zip code gets coal from the following mine:

Scott's Branch Mine
Coal Source: Mountaintop Removal
Location: 93 PICKETT LANE DEBORD, KY 41653
Operator: LCC Kentucky LLC
Controller:International Coal Group Inc (ICG)

Yuck.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

true

Yes, it's been great to see change being pushed by towns, cities, even states. Grassrootsy. The ICLEI program deserves a lot of credit for getting the issue on municipalities' radar and helping them measure and plan for carbon reductions.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

big and small

Thanks, Canis.

My point, I guess, is that the Big 10, or however many there are, really don't need celebrity help. After reading one of the 10's magazines recently, I noted in the back-of-the-mag a list of all of the people doing fundraising work at their main DC office, and it was close to 20 people. Then there's all the folks in all of its regional and state offices working to raise money, too. Each of the Big 10 have an army of help, and will always find a way to raise the money they need for their missions, which are important, I agree.  

But to put a relatively unknown yet effective project in the spotlight could win it so many more supporters, and bolster its mission and ability to make a difference hugely. Many grassroots groups are only constrained in the amount of good they can do by their budgets.

Projects that rescue unwanted animals from the pet trade would be a perfect match for this, or human development organizations like Green Empowerment, which installs renewable energy systems in remote villages in the developing world, empowering indigenous people to stay put in their home places while allowing them to refrigerate medicine or vaccines or use a satellite phone in case of an emergency. http://greenempowerment.org

Snow Leopard Trust is another. (Natalie's people, call me!) They've got an amazing staff on the ground around Central Asia working collaboratively to ensure that this majestic creature keeps dropping on yaks from icy ledges for all time: http://www.snowleopard.org

So the options are enormous for someone looking to make a difference. Of the 1,100 groups in the Orion Grassroots Network, 2/3 have a staff of between 1 and 5 people, and a small budget to match. A funding opportunity offered by celebrity endorsement/donation could mean an awful lot to these groups.

All that said, it also seems to me that the donating of proceeds to a very well known group is probably an important part of the marketing. Not many folks have yet heard of Green Empowerment, compared to the Nature Conservancy, even though they're doing great work on behalf of people and planet.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

re: standards for biofuels

lamarguerite:

The Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels is the main effort:

http://cgse.epfl.ch/page65660-en.html

The Bioenergy Wiki has a roundup of all the efforts here:

http://www.bioenergywiki.net/index.php/Sustainability_sta ...

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

nukes not on the table

Interesting dialogue, but this isn't about how many fatalities are caused by wind turbines or whether a new nuke plant would be more economical or acceptable to the residents of SE Massachusetts (it wouldn't). But Cape Wind itself enjoys a very high public opinion, even in the proposal's back yard: from August 07:

Poll shows 84% in state back 130-turbines:

http://ledger.southofboston.com/articles/2007/08/16/busin ...

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

re: books

Lainey,

Don't know of any books that will help too much. But from personal experience and from running Orion's green job placement service, it's more about deciding what kind of work you really want to do, identifying the organizations or businesses that you think are the best and brightest in that field, and then getting an internship with them or volunteering your time with them. Then you can assess if your career choice seems like a good fit, decide if you need more schooling, and if a job comes open while you're there, you are the first to learn of it...people love to recruit from within, so if you show yourself to be indispensible, it'll work in your favor. Something like 50% of all job openings are never advertised - they're just filled from within.

This route takes sacrifice, or at least putting up with doing another job for money to finance your underpaid status for a while, but it works very well, and helps you imagine your future dream career.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

big fish

Also, John, the catching of all the big fish forces the overfished species to change their reproductive biology, so that they breed earlier and earlier with each generation, before they get big enough to get into the nets. This downward push creates a small species out of a once large species, one that is no longer a key top trophic level predator, altering the food chain. It's unknown whether this would revert in the absence of fishing pressure. I'd like to think so, and common sense would argue, but we don't really know.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

both

Great point, trock. Biofuels and hybrids can develop in parallel. No reason for this to be an either/or.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

expense

If you think you could build 3 nukes with the cash needed to capitalize Cape Wind, I've got a dwarf star to sell you.

Anyhow, just the amount of energy it takes to build a nuke is mind blowing, so factor that into your equation, and add the timeline problem. A windfarm like this one could be up and running in 3 years time. By the time your 3 nukes are built, it's 2030, and the need for their supposed "carbon free" power is gone because the climate is already cooked.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

DEIS

For anyone following this effort, the draft Environmental Impact Statement for Cape Wind is rumored to be released this coming week...

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

agreed

Yes, Wisci, and add sabadilla to the list of  toxins that are so-called "natural." This one is also incredibly toxic. I forget the characteristics of the plant it's extracted from, but when I was asked to apply to an infestation of squash bugs during an organic farm apprenticeship, I was stunned by its toxicity. We wore safety clothing and all. The cultural practices in this squash patch were, to say the least, lacking.

Canola, maybe so.

No more machinery? Sounds like the increasingly grim "use better cars vs. don't use cars anymore" debate going on over at the Greening of Madison Ave thread. In the long run, I might agree. In the short run, how is that practical?

Erik
On GM crops reduce emissions and could be used as carbon offsets, says biotech company posted 1 year, 10 months ago 15 Responses

natural law

To me, if you can't solve a crop problem through the conventional means, thru better culture practices or the natural crossing/hybridizing of like species, then you're asking the wrong question.

ErikOn GM crops reduce emissions and could be used as carbon offsets, says biotech company posted 1 year, 10 months ago 15 Responses

co-ops

And thumbs up for Jon re: co-ops. Amen.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

you win Kit

Sorry for the duplication of comments: we must've been typing our responses out at the same moment, Kit.

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

pollution

Seems to me that the solution in the case of Wifi is a lot simpler than the genetic pollution issue. Just unplug the WiFi and use good old cables. Schools all over the world are doing so, as reported by the BBC:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6172257.stm

It's just straight up precautionary principle, at least in the case of kids, with their "thinner skulls" according to the report, until there's evidence in either direction.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

makes good sense

Well there wasn't such a dustup over this idea when I wrote about it for Grist in September,

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/9/12/113159/502

but I maintain that it's a fine idea, that will indeed save fuel and money, if you take one kite mfr at his word:

"By using the SkySails-System, a ship's fuel costs can be reduced by 10- 35% on annual average, depending on wind conditions. Under optimal wind conditions, fuel consumption can temporarily be reduced by up to 50%. Even on a small, 87 metre cargo ship, savings of up to 280,000 euros can be made annually."

Even if the sail only comes out for whatever part of each voyage during which its use makes sense, why not?  

ErikOn Cargo ship to use massive kite-like sail on trans-Atlantic voyage posted 1 year, 10 months ago 16 Responses

economy, but health, too

Yes, it's an important aspect, connecting with the economy. Which is why I'm glad to also have on my board of advisors with Marcelo the director of United for a Fair Economy. These folks are drawing all of the sorts of connections you envision in ways quite complementary to Van Jones: http://www.faireconomy.org

Another piece not mentioned is the connection with health. Environmental health is an axis even more important than the economic one.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

Umm

..because seat belts and product safety are two areas for which Nader is rightfully recognized as a hero and a true leader?

Tired of the Nader bashing.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

ownership

Mink: if wind power "is simply lining big energy's pockets" then it's just a question of ownership. Sure, most windfarms are owned by corporations, and yes, they make money from the power they produce. But it's not that way everywhere. Take the town of Hull near Boston, Mass. It ran the numbers on erecting a single utility-scale turbine near the beach, found that it'd pay for itself in x number of years and then benefit the town with regular income thereafter. Well it didn't take x years, it took just a few years, and now their municipal budget is awash in cash and they're planning to put up a second turbine.

Community-owned distributed power, whether it's solar, wind, co-gen, or what have you, is a way to deal the public back in to this scenario.

I wonder if anyone's polled the citizens of Hull about whether they like the turning blades or not.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

slavery

The bankruptcy of Wolf's argument is clear from the get-go when he says "legal slavery and serfdom have disappeared" - he clearly knows that the illegal slave trade has resulted in unprecedented numbers and kinds of slaves in recent years, more slaves than have existed at any time before...making the distinction between what's legal and not does not expunge this enormous black mark on current humanity's report card, or bolster one's argument very well.  

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

debate

There's certainly more deniers and skeptics circling around this blog lately, due in large part to DR's good work out there in places like Fox. And that's good. But for me the argument's been over for some time. I have not seen any science that seriously waved a flag (without a lot of extra side-road-questionable detours) against the idea that people are behind this planetary problem. And that suits the situation to a T. We know we're running out of oil and its carbon cohorts, so I wish we could call for cloture & get on with the solutions sooner rather than later.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

gardening

Here's another I've got on my desk of late: a new book by Rev Donna Schaper which arrived at the Orion office recently. I find it to be right on the mark in several respects. "Grassroots Gardening: Rituals for Sustaining Activism" is a collection of essays that center around the regenerative power of growing things. I highly recommend it.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

hog diseases

You see this story, Tom? Another reason why Hill needs to look closely at CAFOs. From Newfarm.org:

Hog-based MRSA infection spreading to farmers in Europe, Canada

A new study published in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Emerging Infectious Diseases links a new strain of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), once found only in pigs, to more than 20 percent of all human MRSA infections in the Netherlands.

The resistant strain--NT-MRSA--emerged in the Netherlands in 2003 and increased steadily until, by 2006, it accounted for more than one out of five human MRSA infections, many of them in either pig farmers or cattle farmers. The cases clustered in regions of the country with high densities of pig and cattle farms. The new strain has high rates of hospitalization, suggesting that it causes severe disease.

Despite these studies and others from Europe dating back to 2005, the United States does not systematically test pigs, cattle or other food animals for MRSA. As a result, the U.S. public health establishment does not know whether the use of antibiotics in food animals in the United States is contributing to the reported surge of MRSA cases.

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

options

If it passes and it is signed, could it be overturned by a new Democratic President, though. When it's shown to be definitively inadequate.

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

yes

Spaceshaper is right in his analysis of coops.

(And do we ever have the coop for Gristmill readers in the Northeast US: Coop Power. It's a member-owned regional effort to catalyze, build, and cooperatively-own distributed renewable energy sources: http://cooppower.coop that can't be bought and sold by fickle power companies.)

The coop structure works well for ag enterprises and could be a big figure in the future of how we feed ourselves.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

consumption

Colin, I think you're right to wonder about that. Besides the "living your ideals" piece which I think is really important, for me it comes down to individuals helping figure out different ways of living on the planet now, before the magnitude of what we perceive to be the problem is fully recognized: by driving demand for alternative vehicles/transport, advocating for renewable power (and building it ourselves when industry or gov't fail to act), training a new generation of young farmers in sustainable ag (and there is a burgeoning effort in the US and elsewhere to do this), donating to groups that are working on solutions like the Land Institute, etc.

I think we can help figure some of these things out and make a difference in the long run.

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

Justlou

When I peer out my air conditioned office and it's 95 degrees out (or 45 out and the heat is roaring), I am as likely to wish I was back on the farm as anything. Granted, I only spent 3 years working small scale organic farms, but they were about the fullest most rewarding years I've had to date.  

Interesting to watch dvd "The Power of Community," about how Cuba "survived peak oil" when the Soviets stopped sending them petrol, how mini-farms popped up everywhere, and lawyers and all manner of city folk left their former white collar careers, rolled up their sleeves and got in the soil, and loved it.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

rooftops

The great thing is that it's simple to grow a lot of vegetables and fruits on very little land. It just takes effort. NY Sun Works (http://www.nysunworks.org) ran the numbers and claims that NY can grow all of the veggies needed to feed its citizens by rooftop gardening: rainwater can also be harvested, the gardens would cool the buildings, solar panels to run the equipment, etc.

Of course that's just veggies. Grains are a big part of the picture and require those bigger plots envisioned.

Heinberg I think is right. We're going to need a lot more hands on the land. It's a rewarding lifestyle, but not for everyone.

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

Just don't eat?

Well I dunno, Sam. Like you (I think), I'll keep eating fish/seafood, but be careful to look for outlets like your friend the conscientious shrimper. No tuna or the like, though yellowfin tuna is about the best choice if one must.

Jon's tilapia and catfish are a great option: they're both vegetarians, I believe, without impacts on oceanic systems (I think). But you may want to ask about antibiotics and the like, Jon. Lots of tilapia in markets comes from countries where chemical amendment is liberal.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

holy crow

Nodded off there for a minute. Biodiversivist, please dial down the condescension meter for a while.

I'm no fan of biofuels as generally practiced, but they're already here and are supplying a small slice of our total energy usage, and I think we need to be proactive and deal with it. Questioning biofuels has been good to slow things down, so we can look at what the impacts are looking like. But as Brooke suggests, it's going to be way more productive to steer this ship in a more positive direction, instead of hollering for what we usually hear in Grist as a call for criminalization of the practice of making biofuel. The National Corn Board (or whatever they're called) and friends laugh notions like that right out of the beltway.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

traditions

Canis,

While I'm willing to bet that tuna were traditionally hunted by the Japanese, the zeal for killing whales for food is much less likely to be rooted that deeply. Carl's got a devastating indictment of that practice, which they persist at, even though whale meat is unpopular in Japan. The official line is that "whales are no more intelligent or special than cows, their expanding numbers are depleting fisheries needed by humans, and any complaints about killing them are hypocritical and little more than cultural imperialism." Full post here:

http://carlsafina.wordpress.com/2007/11/27/more-of-japans ...

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

well

No one's asking every individual in whatever place to use biodiesel made from waste grease. It's just another piece, like hybrids, PHEVs, mass transit, electric bikes, biomass, what have you.

GreyFlcn, your world is so darn black and white I wonder about your vision sometimes.

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

more farmers

Yes, GreenEngineer, I'd bet that wide organic adoption would mean more, smaller farms. And that could be a very good thing. The ones I've worked on I can tell you would have been unmanageable at any larger scale than they were without a lot more help. More people at work in the soil would also be very good. Farming can pay quite well and be very rewarding, with sustained good yields, but not when you're trying to wrangle 10,000 acres. It takes a lot of attention to run a good farm.

Wisc: yes, pests are a concern...regular rotation, soil-enriching activities, and smaller amounts of each crop per farm are the best ways to deal with them. Off farm inputs, organic or not, and cultural methods like tilling and tools get outstripped fast with huge numbers of plants.

And about nitrogen, there are nitrogen-fixing cover crops appropriate for nearly every region. There is one which I can't remember at the moment that is very small/low growing, and cold tolerant, so it can establish before winter in harsh places. If I can turn up the name of it, I'll post it up.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

that's OK

If the Dems can't summon the votes right now, they will at some point. But in the meanwhile, it leaves the ball in our court to start building the energy future we want. The grassroots is constantly showing the national leadership the way.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

volunteer

Well said, Kevin. I'd like to add to item 3 about making a contribution: volunteering is a great way to go...this is more the case for non-profits, but employers are much more likely to hire you if they know you already. Get any old job to pay the bills and identify an organization you'd love to work for, and volunteer your free time/skills to their cause (or get an internship with them if that fits your goals). They may become impressed with your abilities and build a job for you, even, especially if you volunteer to do something that's so far missing from their programs...eg volunteering to lead educational programs for the land trust in town, if envi ed is your thing, and maybe they'll see the value of having an education director.

In any case you'll be the first to hear when a job that you're interested in comes up, and employers often opt to hire from within. And if they don't have to open a hiring process and pay to advertise the job, then everyone's happy.

And of course, have a look here to see if there's already a good opportunity available in your town: Orion Grassroots Network ~ Internship & Career Service:

http://www.orionsociety.org/pages/ogn/ics.cfm

Erik
 

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

Lake Davis

I dug into this more and found that Lake Davis is man made, unsurprisingly, and has been pike-poisoned in the past, and that didn't work either. So the toxics they plan to use in this municipal water supply will be even more deadly this time? Sounds like a bad idea, again. If that were my tap water, I'd be pretty incensed.

A grassroots group in the region, South Yuba River Citizens League, has the dirt:

http://www.syrcl.org/sierra-citizen/sc-view_article.asp?i ...

Sounds like a cluster-you-know-what all 'round.On California officials will poison lake to target nonnative fish posted 2 years, 1 month ago 10 Responses

urban wind

Canis: definitely, urban wind should be put in place. View the designs of Aerotecture to get a sense for what that might look like: they have installed some in Chicago that are beautiful:

http://www.aerotecture.com/projects_mlh.html

They'd definitely add to the energy mix in cities, but would probably not make as big a contribution as rooftops covered with PV panels and vegetable gardens, which would probably be a better way to capture energy there. Paul Gipe, the wind energy author, is on record as saying such, that rooftop wind would be an "unfortunate distraction from the real work of building a renewable society." He promotes PV for cities and large turbines owned by coops and municipal utility companies.

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Coal, too

Big Coal leads the energy industry opposition to wind power:

http://capewindbook.typepad.com/blog/2007/09/a-lump-of-co ...

Makes sense that nuclear boosters would also feel threatened by it. It's a power source that's so obvious and simple, with a fraction of the long term impacts of either nuclear waste or coal's carbon loading of the atmosphere.

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

wobbling

Yes, it really was a miserable day for a bike ride in our wee state of Mass. Hope it didn't worsen your condition.

Your story reminds me of my poor old cat: I just bailed him out of the vet's office where he was under heavy sedation this a.m., and has yet to recover. So sad to watch him wobbling around the house. His back legs aren't working as well as his front ones yet.

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"Biodiesel Reality Check"

Actually, that site is registered and maintained by biodiversivist himself, anonymously. So it's not the greatest reference he could've chosen.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

kites

Some data on kites and cargo ships here:

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/9/12/113159/502

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

nice

Beautifully broken down, DR. This guy's rhetoric is so riddled with fear...

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

Star Trek effect

GreenEngineer is right to include psychology - my sense from hawking renewable energy at festival and conference booths is that there are folks who, while they think the current renewable energy technologies are neato, are expecting some big breakthrough that makes all this intermediary stuff irrelevant, on the order of phasers and photon bombs. (Of course, the Enterprise's power source was nuclear.)

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

NRG

Nice to hear that the company that wants to build the US' first nuke in ages has no experience. But that cavalier attitude is rampant in the industry, so they'll be right at home.

Speaking of cavalier, the NRC just allowed the nearby and rapidly aging Vermont Yankee reactor to continue operating long after the plant was due to shut down, and above the capacity it was built for. It has had several safety concerns lately including a collapse of its "cooling towers" which are made of wood. Wood!? What century was this thing built in?

But true to the nature of this industry, the plant's operator said all that is routine. No worries. Go home and turn on the lights...luckily the grassroots efforts of New England Coalition are watchdogging these guys. Someone's got to. www.newenglandcoalition.org

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

retraining

Jones and others are really onto something good. At the same time that we get on training an army of  green collar workers, lots of grassroots groups are busy training the next generation of small farmers, which we're also going to need a lot more of in the future, if you believe folks like Richard Heinberg. The Farm School here in Mass, Michael Fields Agricultural Institute in Wis, and many others churn out new farmers all the time schooled in low input, high output ag.

I like the vision of these two armies marching in parallel toward a more livable future.

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expensive

Yes, they do generally cost more, but 3 to 4 times more doesn't match up with my experience. Mine cost about $400 more than the usual tank-type heater. Which is not a whole lot, and I will get that back in gas not used in a few years. The unit runs several appliances or faucets at once, with no delay in delivery. And if for some reason you need a copious amount of hot water, you're in business, because the tankless heater never runs out, unlike a tank type heater.

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

kids

Yes, it feels like a low tactic, threatening kids, or our sense of the wellbeing of our kids. Using children like this in campaign messaging has been on the outs with major charities for a while.

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less than 1%

Grey, hey, even so, around 1% is a lot of energy, when you're talking about the world's gas hog, the US. Still sounds good to me, and if it gives towns and cities, who run their fleets on the diesel engine, a measure of locally produced fuel, there's no harm.

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

Spike the pike

I agree: introduction of non-native species has got to be stemmed. No question.

Poisoning whole ecosystems to root out those that are already established is questionable.

Elsewhere it's likely that herbicides will be used around a large swath of the west's public lands in the coming year to kill off some of the weeds there, and this summer the state of NJ sprayed its northern forests with BT to kill the larvae of gypsy moths, but managed to kill lots of other moth and butterfly caterpillars. Hopefully no Luna moths were killed, but it's likely.

So, mixed results. I'll take Luna moths and a few gyspy moths thrown in, too, thanks.On California officials will poison lake to target nonnative fish posted 2 years, 2 months ago 10 Responses

GE is a mixed bag

Really mixed. This WSJ report speaks volumes.

In Massachusetts, they're still fighting cleaning up the Housatonic River which it dumped amazing amounts of PCBS into last century (and which placed the river on the "10 most endangered rivers" list). GE's latest move is to buy some impacted properties along the river, which, as grassroots group Housatonic River Initiative has pointed out, usually leads to less stringent cleanup efforts and hence savings for the company.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1000+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

coops

Coops are a (for-profit) way forward that can affect the world positively, binding the buying power of many folks in a community together. Food coops are the most visible example, but there are also cooperative department stores sprouting up to compete with the big box mentality, and here in western Mass, I'm a member of a "renewable energy coop" called Coop Power that's using its members' shared equity to invest in new renewable energy projects: a kind of grassroots investment fund in biomass, wind, solar, etc. The power companies aren't building green reneweable energy sources around here, so it's up to us.

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plantations

Right, so instead of growing evergreens for chips and boards on plantations, some plantations/tree farms might be planted to poplars instead. In lieu of growing (genetically modified?) poplars in forests, I'd like to hope.

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the other Greenpeace ad

They're running an ad on the tube in Mass right now  on the topic of Cape Wind, singling out Kennedy and Congressman Delahunt for opposing it. They sure are spending a lot on videos these days:

http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/campaigns/global-warming-an ...

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1000+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

Ah

One of the intrepid member groups of the Orion Grassroots Network getting noticed. Very nice.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1000+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

Maine

Good to know, Penelope. I don't think you're crazy!

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1000+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

re: Grist accepts ads

Indeed. The point about advertising was Earthbeat's, not mine.

My bone to pick is with how much oil it took to make a million DVDs that are going to be in the trash shortly.

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obsession

Just based on the number of posts here each day on the topic, I'd say another fair question would be "Is Gristmill too obsessed with climate change?"

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Amen

Bravo, Bill & co. Yes, let's keep moving this rock up the hill and keep the heat on the candidates. Count on us at Orion to do something imaginative in Great Barrington, Mass. Maybe we'll gather at the site of the first CSA in the US, started by a true leader on the topic of sustainability and relocalization, Robyn van En.On Step It Up 2 is coming this November -- get ready to hit the streetsAsk politicians to join Step It posted 2 years, 3 months ago 5 Responses

community colleges and green job training

News on this from Western Mass:

"Thanks to a three-year $372,000 grant for Sustainable Practices in Construction (SPC), Greenfield Community College will be able to train local builders, business employees and tradespeople in these new technologies."

The college applied for the grant from something called the Workforce Competitiveness Trust Fund after it began a series of courses on solar and energy conservation and efficiency.

http://www.recorder.com/story.cfm?id_no=4310437

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1000+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

re: I don't understand

So Ron, you asked "Where's the public outcry?" And I said I don't know. So you reply with examples of public outcry? I thought YOU were the one that didn't know. So why ask?

Anyhoo, don't nobody label me a biodiesel industry apologist. I keep saying that it's already here getting huge on the public teat, you can't just unbuild it, so let's make it as good as it can be until we don't need it anymore b/c we've got a better idea than internal combustion and liquid fuels.  

I'm fine with zeroing subsidies. Count me in. Fuels ought to compete on their merits. Biodiesel is a premium liquid fuel which is as good for an engine as it is for the air, so it should do fine on the market. And it would help mightily if the subsidies for oil would go, too.

The kind I force-feed my Jetta is at least 50% recycled. Show me dino-fuel that can claim that.

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offsets

Don't forget to buy offsets for that flight...

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practicality

Grey,

"Drastically reduce the value of biofuels by cutting programs"

Whatcha mean?

You keep beating that drum on biofuels, but you're not living in the real world. Our only choice right now is to advocate for biofuels from non-palm/non-corn/more sustainable feedstocks. (And before I get into trouble here, "more sustainable" does not mean "sustainable." Just closer to it.)

Until biofuels are outlawed, which looks like a long way away indeed, you can't just wish a massive, and growing, industry away. You can, however, organize to change its practices. Ask the folks who took on Home Depot over tropical lumber about that.

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amen

Amen, Andrew. I fish in the Atlantic to put protein on the table, but I will not fish for shark or buy it at the market.

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green

Grey,

Yes, good points, but you're not being very practical. Biodiesel is already here, it's being manufactured in enormous facilities, and more are being built all the time. We can't, as a pile of Gristers, stop that. But we can advocate for sustainability standards for those that do produce it. How about, no biodiesel from palm oil, ever, as a starter. But there are other feedstocks besides WVO, which we can learn to grow more sustainably.

Biofuels are going to be part of the liquid fuel mix, even if it's only a slice. This and gas sipping petro cars will have to be a bridge to the next place we go with personal transport, whether it's all electric or what have you. But we have to transition there, in a fuel-sipping manner. So hybrids, plugins, and biodiesel, which is much more climate friendly than petrol.

"Which then begs the question how green is this biodiesel really going to be?"

Baby and the bathwater. Greens have to go for the big picture, and try not to pick apart the individual pieces to the detriment of progress.

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heat

Nancy's taking heat in her district for this position, which seems to be about vote trading and keeping the Dem majority, unfortunately. Lesser of two evils if that saddles us with another 5 years of poor ag policy?

Here's a juicy quote from a midwest congressman, telling activists and city people not to nose around in policy that they don't understand:

"Peterson (Democrat, MN) dismissed critics outside the traditional farm belt.

" "I know people on the outside can sit and complain about this, but frankly most of those people have no clue what they're talking about," Peterson said. "Most people in the city have no concept of what's going on here." "

Gee thanks. So the policies Congress is approving that effect every aspect of how the country eats is 'none of your business' if you live in a city or outside the farm belt.

From SF Chronicle:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/ ...

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more

Sammie, sure, would be interested to learn more about this, if your friends are game.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1000+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

print

I've considered unsubscribing, but the problem is I like Nat Geo, and they do run some very interesting pieces, things like the Greenland ice sheets piece mentioned:

http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0706/feature2/

I get the print edition, so far, because there's a limit to the number of words I will read on a screen. Geo articles are long, and I usually don't finish them in one sitting.

Subscribers have advocated for them to walk their talk and use post consumer recycled paper, but the decision still seems to come down on the side of glossy photo reproduction. Other magazines have beefed up their green cred in recent years, but the circulation of Nat Geo is so huge, it could really make a difference.

The dvd produced by Shell mentioned really is something else. They're distributing it as an insert for Wired magazine subscribers, too.

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RE: No

Well gee, thanks, I see everything differently now. Thanks for straightening me out.

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1000+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

heavies

That's an awful lot of money to give to the same heavies that we've not seen much leadership from to date. Small grassrootsy efforts like those mentioned at the bottom of the post could do a lot to shift the debate with even just a slice of the pie. Hope that efforts like those are on Duke's radar for the next time they give such buckets of money away.

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1000+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

humanure

The ultimate treatise on using human waste for organic ag is "Farmers of Forty Centuries" - it documents how for 40 centuries China had a closed loop agriculture that among other things recycled all human waste into crops: very cool: not so applicable to today with the various things like drugs and toxics that go down the drain, but it's fascinating, and a window into how a human powered world worked and could work again. (The guy who wrote the book a century ago said when this practice was still in full swing, his translator was shocked to learn that Americans "sent so much good fertilizer down the river.")

You can download this lengthy tome for free, amazingly, here:

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/5350

There are recent books on this topic of using human waste for compost: Humanure Handbook:

http://www.joseph-jenkins.com/books_humanure.html

Also: Liquid Gold: The Lore and Logic of Using Urine to Grow Plants:

http://www.ecowaters.org/products.html

Alright, enough potty talk.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1000+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

how about some good news from the SE, then

The SE has lots of good going, too. Take Greensboro, NC: a case study in "unsprawl" in the new issue of Terrain.org:

http://terrain.org/unsprawl/

Spartanburg, SC also has lots on the ball in terms of creating a livable community, one with green spaces, a vibrant arts and alternative music scene, local ag...

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1000+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

Live Earth

One of the things that struck me taking in Live Earth this weekend is that the millions and millions of folks who are just tuning in predominantly heard three things:

1. use CFLs
   
2. this concert's emissions were offset
   
3. most musicians with any kind of green cred interviewed back stage are running their tour buses on biodiesel

So it makes the greens' message very tricky, when some are advocating solutions like this and others are shooting holes in them. Debate is good, especially when it leads to better ways of doing things, but when it comes to overall policy and strategy, pointing out so many problems hurts the overall message and its movement.

I guess that means that I'm in the camp of "fake it till you make it."

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then we must disagree

CanCan,

You make some good points, but we disagree. To me these kinds of groups you mention are grassroots in every sense - seeing needs and filling them, struggling against long odds, making do with little funding, working in isolation...I find the work of these small groups heroic, and having worked for a number myself around the West and East Coasts, I can tell you that everyone on the team was important and brought good ideas and leadership to the table, not just the director.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1000+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

competitive

Similar mpg means, well, similar.

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1000+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

biodiesel too

The cost of biodiesel's going up, too, as soy farmers are planting corn instead to get in on the ethanol rush. Which is fine, but that's also pushing waste vegetable oil up, which some biodiesel processors and a lot of grease car users don't like so much...

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no. 3

Ah, thanks for looking that up. That's what the author was probably aiming at, you're right.

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good idea

Another good one is the "kill a watt," which allows you to test individual appliances and assess how efficient they are. A large LCD display counts consumption by the Kilowatt-hour. You can figure out your electrical expenses by the hour, day, week, month, even an entire year, and decide which appliances need to be replaced to save energy and cash. Costs around $20.

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New York & national

Yes, surprising that we can't return drugs like this everywhere. If you discover a place that takes old drugs in NY (or anywhere), definitely post it up here. Check this NYT article about the issue:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/03/science/earth/03water.h ...

"In a survey begun in 1999, the agency surveyed 139 streams around the country and found that 80 percent of samples contained residues of drugs like painkillers, hormones, blood pressure medicines or antibiotics. The agency said the findings suggested that the compounds were more prevalent and more persistent than had been thought."

Why not develop a national mail-in program, where folks can send such things? I searched in vain for a gov't program that did this. This is a non-profit waiting to be formed. Or at least an EPA program of some kind.

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coal ash and cancer

We ought to consider the other impacts of coal, too, when looking at how/if to use coal. Besides air pollution and climate impacts, plus mining and mountaintop removal, there's the enormous problem of what to do with what's left over after coal's combustion.

Coal ash is the US' second largest industrial waste stream (129 million tons/yr). EPA's failure to limit pollution from coal ash has poisoned surface and groundwater supplies in at least 23 states. It's contaminated with mercury, arsenic, lead, cadmium, chromium and selenium. There are currently about 600 existing coal ash landfills and surface impoundments in the U.S. This number will only grow with more coal combustion.

The risk of getting cancer from coal ash lagoons is 10,000 times greater than government safety standards allow, according to an Environmental Protection Agency draft report released March 6, 2007.

http://lowbagger.org/hiddencostofcoal.html

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siting

Thanks for clarifying, D. Hadn't heard of the idea to site turbines on land...along the length of the Cape? How comparable is the "wind resource?" Would you imagine there'd be more opposition to that siting proposal?

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re: Near a Large Market?

Someone had wondered what makes Cape Wind an  economically viable project. Since it's not proposed to be terribly far offshore, that makes the power it would produce a very short distance from land, Cape Cod, the Islands...

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depths

My understanding is that the pylons would be in fairly shallow water.

Cape Wind makes economic sense b/c it's a very windy spot featuring reliably great winds during the summer cooling season, and it blows hard all winter long. I've never been on that piece of water when it wasn't blowing well.

Plus it's very near a large market, Cape Cod.

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home power

Senator Kerry,

Is there anything in the energy bill meant to incentivize renewable energy systems in private homes and businesses? If not, this is something of a missed opportunity. Every home and business can be a renewable power plant to some degree. The more of us that are making and using some of our own power the better: it could add up to a lot and even offset the need for new power plants at some point, if it made better economic sense to do so.
 

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extinction rates

Interesting discussion of that is at Orion magazine's site right now, from Christopher Cokinos' article The Consolations of Extinction."

At the end of his book Extinction: How Life on Earth Nearly Ended 250 Million Years Ago, Douglas Erwin writes that some paleontologists believe that conservation biologists have significantly misunderstood the fossil record when making claims...regarding the human acceleration of extinction rates.

It's a matter of technique, perhaps, as he continues:

"any comparison of fossil extinction rates to current estimates is inherently flawed because the data are so different. With certain obvious exceptions (passenger pigeons, mastodons, and saber-toothed tigers leap to mind), most of the species that humans have so thoughtlessly eliminated are local, often rare, and unlikely to be preserved in the fossil record."

"It is far more appropriate," he continues, "to compare past mass extinctions to the number of species that have disappeared among common, widespread, and durable species. There is no political motivation for such a comparison, of course, as it would significantly lower the apparent similarity between past mass extinctions and the current situation."

The way he finishes the essay is really poignant, and if you have the time, give it a read. It's a call to action.

http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/2 ...

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1000+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more